By Staff
Kim West, Franklin County Times
Let me start with a clarification for my mother, who reads nearly everything I write, no matter how mundane – I'm not getting married.
But tomorrow I'm headed down U.S. 43 to watch another one of my former Shelton State teammates get married.
I think I went to two weddings before I graduated high school – my oldest and older sisters' nuptials.
But since then I've been to eight weddings, including two cousins, two resident assistant couples, three teammates and a co-worker's.
By next summer, I'm guessing that number will jump to 14 weddings after my current roommate, younger sister and four more teammates put themselves through several months of wedding planning to light those unity candles and cue up those post-wedding snapshot slide shows that seem inspired by Facebook.
Okay, so maybe that seems awfully flippant of something as important as promising to spend the rest of your life with someone in front of your loved ones. And I actually love going to weddings. It's interesting how some couples choose to marry in a church, and others pick a wedding chapel or even an outdoor setting.
My all-time favorite wedding – with apologies to family members – has to be the one in Covington, La. two summers ago, just weeks before Hurricane Katrina blasted through the area. A dorm buddy and I drove to New Orleans and stayed with one of my cousins near the French Quarter. After changing clothes, we headed north on the causeway that linked the city to Covington. The 20-minute drive over Lake Pontchartrain, which is the second-largest salt-water lake in the U.S., felt like driving to heaven.
The wedding itself was beautiful, and the ceremony had a good combination of what I call part-sermon, part-vows. Afterwards, there was a lively dance floor, great food and a foray into the French Quarter.
Whenever I see the wedding favor magnet on my fridge, it reminds me how much fun it was to watch two people take a giant leap of faith and then dance the night away with their family and friends.