Tying the Knot: My First Wedding

Here’s something funny: Although I’ve worked for several bridal magazines, written a book on the subject, and know far more about butler cards than even the butler knows about butler cards, until recently I’d never actually attended a wedding.

For a while, that was my party trick, a conversation-starter I brought out (like Scrabble or the good liquor) when talk turned dull. “You know,” I’d say casually, “I’ve never been to a wedding…” “But,” people would stammer, “you write about weddings!”

And that was exactly it—I wrote about them. I knew all the theory, I just hadn’t put it into practice. I could gush over invitations for hours, ask questions about calla lilies until the cows came home, but I’d never experienced that spine-tingling moment when the bride glides down the aisle, and every pair of eyes swivels towards her and then mists over.

Until last summer, that is, when a friend took pity on me and invited me as her “plus one” to a small Folly Beach ceremony. And boy, what a way to learn.

Charleston ranks as the third most popular city in the country for destination weddings, and all I can say about that is that the first two spots must be heaven and cloud nine. Because I doubt there could have been a more romantic backdrop than the rented beachfront cottage in which my friend’s friends—a pair of former Lowcountry locals turned L.A. dwellers—tied the knot.

A string quartet vied gently with the breaking waves as we took our seats in the seaside garden; the weather was balmy, the sky a cloudless azure that dipped down to meet the blue-green Atlantic. To the left, the Morris Island lighthouse rose in a spiral; to the right, sea-gulls whirled and swooped. When the bride made her way toward her beloved, I wept. “But you don’t even know them!” my friend hissed. “Still,” I sniffed, “it’s just all so perfect!”
And it was. With family spread across the country, the couple reasoned their guests would have to travel wherever they wed, so they chose a place they loved. And though all came from afar, for that one evening, everyone felt Charleston was exactly where they were meant to be.

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