#FAIRY LIGHT TABLE CENTERPIECES HOW TO#

The birds that will chirp happily at your feeder, and the ones that will fly head-first into your wide glass door. The one thing you’ll say that you can’t take back. That long, cold winter when nothing will go right. They will see that perfect vacation at the lake. All the power struggles and new mattresses and graduations and address changes. They will watch you dance your first dance on that cobbled-together parquet floor, and they will see all the weeknights and errands.

#FAIRY LIGHT TABLE CENTERPIECES HOW TO#

How to return to being a better half to your better half, and if two halves still make a whole.

They know that you will have to learn, then, how to be something other than “parent.” How to be yourself again. They will watch as your child morphs before your eyes from wide-eyed cherub to foot-stomping toddler to dour teen to occasional stranger. And each time, you will learn if you can.

Each time, you will have to depend on each other. And all the other deaths - grandma, friend, uncle, dad - that will march through your years like an invading army. They will see the death of your first pet and, eventually, of your second. They will see the time at the garden center when you stop in front of a pile of gravel, stare at the multitude of tiny gray rocks, and wonder - maybe out loud, or maybe just to yourself - if it was all a big mistake. Disagreements over paint color that balloon into something more dire. Down payments and loan payments and deductible payments, each with the power to strangle. Addictions of varying flavors and strengths. The fertility challenges, appearing out of the blue. They will also see the devastating lay-off. If you thought to ask them, they would take your hand and tell you that they felt it too. You will wonder how such bliss can be accompanied by such terror - and anger. That year will roll in like a wind storm, stirring up ever-shifting sands of responsibility, blame and guilt. They will see your first year after your first baby, the so-called “hardest year of marriage,” as you will learn after the fact, but not before. Because this is a day for fairy tales, and they will see what the speechmakers don’t. You won’t notice that their smiles are tinged with melancholy as they listen to the speeches of love and happily ever after. They will chew their chicken and admire the dresses and clink their glasses. A squeeze on the shoulder, a “thank you so much for coming!” You won’t sit down beside them. When you stop by to say hello, it will be perfunctory. They’re somewhere behind the “work friends” and the “home friends,” back by the kitchen’s swinging door. You’ve seated them far from the dance floor. Years from now, you’ll see them in the background of a candid shot and smile, perhaps. Their faces won’t appear in the formal photographs, or the silly, costumed poses for Instagram.

You won’t invite them into your pictures. These are your MVGs… Most Valuable Guests. And I’ve seen enough receptions to know that you, like most brides and grooms, will be too busy and excited - and, let’s face it, too blissfully young - to recognize the real treasure hiding somewhere behind all those darn balloons. I’ve seen torrential rains, heartfelt vows, bees in the centerpieces, twisted ankles, doggie ring-bearers, and blueberry pie in place of cake. No detail will escape your notice.Īs a former function coordinator, I’ve seen more weddings than most. Still, to you and yours, this will be a day to remember, from the flowers to the food to the ridiculous balloon-awning monstrosity that your future mother-in-law insisted on. As it turns out, you’ll be sharing it with plenty of others more couples will marry in 2022 than in any other year in recent history.

Wedding guests tossing rice at newlyweds, outdoors (Getty Images)

Fairy light table centerpieces