12 Bridesmaids to 0…

I am divorced, but I love love, dating, relationships, romance, and marriage. I, myself, am getting married (again) in 7 weeks which in some ways feels nuts considering I just got out of a marriage 5 years ago. I am having a lot of big feelings and emotions come up around entering this container again. There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head related to the differences between my first wedding and my second wedding. I may try to unpack a lot of them here in the coming weeks.. there are more differences than similarities!

One of the most significant initial differences is that for my first wedding, I had 12 bridesmaids… TWELVE. That is a lot of recent sorority girl college grads (well my sister wasn’t in a sorority and one of my besties from NYC wasn’t, but the other 10 - yes). For my second wedding, Mark and I are not doing bridesmaids and groomsmen; this time I’ll have zero. That’s a big change… 12 to 0. What’s even more wild to me is that only 4 of the 12 are even invited! I hardly speak to the 8 not invited; some not at all because when I got divorced, many of my super religious friends did not agree with that call and decided I was on an evil path away from God (insert upside down smiley face emoji).

I’m not sure it will be helpful or not, but when my kids are 22 and graduating from college (hopefully!) I am going to tell them, you feel SO CLOSE to your college friends right now, like you’ll be thick as thieves with them your whole life because of the amazing 4 years you just logged with them, but you actually have no idea IF or which ONES will end up standing the test of time. I suppose, I was in a particularly tough scenario being a fairly religious Christian, and thus lots of my very best girlfriends were also very Christian; these are the ones I lost in the divorce. I could not have anticipated or known how deeply those friendships were tied to a shared commitment to religious precepts. I wrongly thought they loved me and loved our friendship because of who I was / am, but apparently I chose the “wrong path” away from God when I got divorced. Therefore, when they didn’t agree with my choices, we could no longer be friends (according to them). Okay?? Ha. Religion is wild; but more importantly, and sadly, people’s tightly wound commitment to a set of dogmatic beliefs that would allow for those beliefs to be more important than a friendship. So in 7 weeks time, I will get married again without the presence of some women I could never have anticipated would no longer be in my life, and that is heartbreaking. Some were like actual, real sisters to me.

I saw a recent post on social media that said: “Remember who stayed by your side through all of your life’s plot twists. Those are your people.”

Amen ;)

Grateful to all my people who stayed in my life and loved me in spite of my life’s plot twists. I’m also insanely grateful for all the new beautiful souls I’ve picked up along the way that I now consider dear friends, who I am ecstatic will be there to celebrate at my 2nd wedding. Sometimes you have to lose things that no longer fit, to gain more beautiful things in their place.

xo

Anna