Just a wedding.

Today I spent the day at a wedding. I was Best Woman, which was an honour, and saw one of my dearest friends marry a beautiful and lovely woman. I had a gorgeous dress and my children and husband all looked gorgeous too. It was perfect. It was, apparently, the first bride and bride marriage in Oxfordshire. That’s quite exciting, in lots of ways. It’s always fun to be at the edge of the wave of something, one of the first. What struck me most though today, as I helped put brides into dresses, hold drinks, waft flower girls along the aisle and most of all watch two beautiful people who are in love get married, was how very ordinary it felt. Ordinary in a good way. Normal. Normal in a good way. It was two people getting married. Two happy people, in love, getting married. It struck me forcefully that as a society we’ve been as wrapped up in bride/groom normality as right and everything being ‘change’ or ‘progress’ or less positive words in the same way as we talk about a Kindle being an okay way to read but a ‘real book is a real book’. It’s nonsense. The essence of a book is words and story, not paper. The essence of a marriage is just two humans wanting to be together forever, for the sheer joy of a perfect partnership. I didn’t go to a gay or lesbian wedding today. I didn’t go to something new or remarkable or progressive. I went to a wedding. Just a wedding. Two people, in love, caring for each other, full of fun and kindness and passion for a future.

And it was unspeakably, perfectly, heartstoppingly beautiful.

Happy future, Claire and Angie. Happy everything.