Weddings

So Sam and I made a whirlwind trip to Kansas this weekend to go to a wedding. The groom had been in our bridal party, and Sam was in his.

I was the typical "girl with usher number 2" whom no one knew.

I hate being that girl. I'm not so good at making friends - take that back. I'm pretty decent with complete strangers. Put me in a room where no one knows me and I'll chat you up. On the street, waiting for a bagel? No problem. You'll know my whole life story and we'll be trading emails. But in a room filled with friends of Sam's I have never met?

I am as socially inept as a twelve year old girl in braces and glasses in a room full of high school football players.

I'm nervous, I'm antsy. I'm quiet and try to just stay out of the way. I want to be myself, but we all know my first impression is often a bit bitchy and while this is information I was told fifteen years ago - it has resided in my brain and made me absolutely terrified of coming off that way now.

To Sam's friends. To their wives. I don't want to be *that* wife. You know the one. The one that somehow captured the fun guy, the guy that was always a ball of excitement and adventure. . . and *god*, what DOES he see in her?

So I'm there and the wives, they are ever so kind to me. They act like I've been around forever. They ask about my life and what I do and they invite me to sit with them and dear lord, I feel like I just got invited to sit with the cool kids. And I have a blast. We snark about the DJ and laugh about our husbands. They tell me stories I've never heard and I go make a bar run to get them more wine. It was so fun. And I feel like maybe, just maybe, I made some new friends. And that makes me happy.

What else makes me happy? Speaking of me being a bit bitchy? Their wedding was nice, but ours? I liked it better. That's right, I said it. Ours was better. Hee. And I know it's awful to say - but I took a special kind of joy thinking as we were going through "I'm glad we did this and not this." I guess you make so very many decisions in the rush of it all and kind of just hope it worked out, and you *think* it did, but it's hard to tell. There are a lot of "what if's." And this weekend ended them all for me.

I loved our wedding the first time, reliving it in my mind this weekend again, I loved it all the more. I wouldn't change a thing. Not one small, tiny, infinitesimal thing.

I'm guessing this is how all brides feel. At least, I hope so.