Chapters 12
The date was set for early May,
a time when the Charleston heat was still bearable,
and the gardens were in full,
glorious bloom.
They decided to hold the ceremony in our backyard,
a decision that terrified me at first,
knowing the unpredictable nature of spring weather.
But Sarah simply shrugged off my concerns,
smiling brightly as she walked across the grass.
"If it rains,
we will just get wet,"
she had said,
laughing at my anxious expression.
"The marriage license works exactly the same,
wet or dry."
There were no caterers demanding eighty-four thousand dollars,
no sprawling tents with crystal chandeliers,
and no rigid seating charts designed to separate feuding relatives.
Instead,
Daniel and his friends strung miles of simple fairy lights through the branches of the old oak tree,
creating a glowing canopy over the lawn.
Margaret spent weeks tending to her garden,
ensuring the rose bushes and hydrangeas were perfectly pruned,
acting as the only floral decorations required.
Sarah’s family arrived a few days early,
a loud,
warm,
and incredibly grounded group of people from the Midwest.
Her father,
a retired mechanic with rough hands and a booming voice,
spent an entire afternoon helping me fix a broken hinge on the garden gate.
We worked side by side in the sun,
sharing tools,
and talking about the strange,
winding paths our children take to find happiness.
"I was worried about Daniel at first,"
her father admitted,
wiping grease from his hands with a rag.
"Sarah told me he had a rough time of it,
that his first try at this nearly broke him."
I paused,
holding a screwdriver in my hand,
and nodded slowly.
"It did,"
I confessed,
looking toward the house where Daniel and Sarah were laughing in the kitchen window.
"But sometimes,
you have to be broken to realize how the pieces are actually supposed to fit together."
Her father smiled,
a wide,
genuine expression,
and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder.
"Well said,
Thomas,"
he agreed,
turning back to the gate.
"He fits perfectly with my girl,
and that is all that matters."
The backyard was transformed,
not into a magazine cover,
but into a sanctuary of love,
filled with wooden chairs borrowed from the church,
and tables covered in simple white linens.
It was entirely unpretentious,
May you like
deeply personal,
and exactly what a wedding was always meant to be.
