My Wedding Day

    It is a beautiful early fall day. The sky is a brilliant blue backdropping fluffy white clouds drifting eastward. Trees are beginning to change colors, a few showing tinges of reds and golds, others still all green. A playful breeze swirls loose leaves around me as I stand under a walnut tree at the edge of the woods. The afternoon is cool and dry, a perfect time for being outdoors.

    I stand at the end of a freshly mown path through the pasture. The brightness of goldenrod, highlighted with the deep purple of ironweed and ageratum’s soft blue, line this passageway through God’s flowerbed. A few white flowers – late-blooming Queen Anne’s lace, wild asters, white ageratum – are scattered among the brighter colors. Butterflies skim the blooms, adding to the beauty of the day.

    I clutch my bouquet tightly. It isn’t large, nor fancy. A few sprigs of goldenrod and white wild asters, bound with grass string from Daddy’s barn. Something old.
    I look down at my feet, and the pair of harness leather boots I purchased this week. They are dark brown and will wear for several years. Something new.
    Around one ankle is a boot bracelet my friend insisted I wear today. It is sparkly and nicely designed, but does not suit my taste. Something borrowed.
    My jeans and favorite T-shirt are comfortable, and complete the last part of the rhyme. Something blue.

    It is my wedding day.

    I look toward my beloved, standing near a large cedar tree, his best friend at his side. Behind them is the minister, the only person here today who is formally attired; I really don’t know why.

    All my misgivings assail me and I am motionless. My friend pokes me in the back and mutters, “Get moving.”
    This is going to be either the shortest or the longest walk of my life. I take a deep breath then make the first step toward my future. 

    Forty-two steps. Yes, I count them. Not a long distance to walk but it feels like it takes forever. My heart is racing, and I’m fighting the urge to turn those forty-two steps into twenty long strides, racing back to the safety of the mundane life that is mine.
    I stop and turn to face my beloved. He reaches for my hand, and when I place my hand in his, he raises my hand to his lips, and gently kisses my fingers. The warmth of his hand, the tenderness of his kiss, the love I see in his eyes, makes those forty-two steps the shortest trip I have ever taken.

    We chose to use the traditional wedding vows, and the minister takes his time with them. My beloved and I are so focused on each other that I’m not sure either of us is hearing the vows to which we barely mumble responses.

    The minister clearing his throat brings me back to where I am. My wedding day. Holding my beloved’s hands, smiling at him. We cast sidelong glances at the minister, neither of us inclined to divert our attention from each other.
    “Do you have the rings?” the minister asks.
    Our friends display the rings – not my beloved’s preference, for I do not need a ring to tell me where my heart belongs, but a compromise of twisted gold bands, with no ornamentation. The minister clears his throat again, and my beloved and I take the rings from our friends and complete the ceremony, barely looking away from each other’s face long enough to place the rings on our hands.

    Rings in place, we entwine our fingers together as the minister says, “You may kiss the bride . . .”

    The dream fades and I awake. Perhaps I will receive that kiss another time . . .