Heartfelt friendship and weddings

There's something special about real friendship. True friends are the kind of people that you can know for years, and yet even if you don't end up hanging out quite as often as you had before, the feeling of kinship never goes away.

When you are with a true friend, it doesn't matter if you last spoke a year ago, picking up the thread of conversation is as natural and as easy as if you'd last spoken the previous afternoon.

Even though this wedding was last September, I have been wanting to write a blog post about it ever since then, so here are my belated congratulations to the happy couple.

This wedding is all about friendship, come on in and let me tell you why. 

When Norm met Kim, it was that kind of instant friendship, one that is so critical to a good marriage. He told me repeatedly in the days leading up to the wedding, "She is my best friend." When someone tells me that, I know that their wedding and relationship are going to be a solid success. They had met years previously, and yet at their second meeting, many years later, the planets all aligned for them, and just being around the two of them for their wedding, you could feel the deep friendship and spark of true love that flowed between them. 


Friendship has another part to play in this wedding also. I have considered Norm a true friend for nearly twenty years now. We have seen each others children born and our respective love relationships go through their ups and downs. We have shared deep conversation, desperate emotion, good times and bad, and through all of it, we carried a deep connection of friendship that was not dependent on when or where or how often we spoke. 


All weddings are an honor and a pleasure, but this one in particular was an immense honor and a deeply satisfying pleasure, as I saw my great friend Norm be so incredibly happy with his best friend Kim. Congratulations to Norm and Kim, and may your friendship and love eternally endure and continue to blossom.

read more on this wedding or handfasting topic

Impromptu Weddings

Although they are called by many names, elopements, last-minute weddings, drive-through weddings, and many other terms both respectful and not so much, what I call "Impromptu Weddings" are more common than people may imagine, and actually have their own charm. There is often a sense of giddy excitement to an impromptu wedding, a charged atmosphere and a sense of elation when it is done.

This is not to say that the carefully planned and meticulously orchestrated weddings do not have their own charm, indeed they do. However, the sort of sparkling energy that comes in an impromptu ceremony can also be very appealing.

There are as many reasons for a last-minute wedding as there are couples on the earth. Some of the more common reasons include medical emergencies, military assignments, health insurance concerns, and yes, even death and taxes. Some long-term couples just "decide" one day to formalize a bond held for years, and some very short term engagements can result in a quick trip to the County Clerk's office. Despite the negativity often associated with impromptu weddings, I have seen little evidence that couples who choose quick weddings have any less of a chance long-term than a couple who have planned theirs out for a year or more. The main factor for success in my opinion resides in the ways that the couple can communicate and connect deeply.
As long as the couple truly love each other and are willing to work on everything else, an impromptu wedding is no curse.

read more on this wedding or handfasting topic