Hiiiii, sorry for the skipped week last week. It was for good reason: it was the week of my wedding.
I have been planning to have a wedding for my 27th birthday for years now. The idea came to me one fateful night scrolling on the perfect website TikTok.com. I watched a video of someone spray painting thrifted dinosaur toys gold for little table center pieces for the wedding and thought, that looks fun.
I was never one to dream about my perfect wedding growing up, in fact I never even imagined having a wedding at all (it’s hard to see a future for yourself from within the closet).
I have, however, always loved throwing parties. I love planning themed cocktails, thrifting decorations, and single-handedly supporting the balloon industry (sans helium — you’re welcome, Earth!). For my 22nd birthday, I threw a Frat-themed party, complete with wristbands with my face on it and pledges at the door asking you to name 5 brothers. (Some themes are better than others - for my 21st the theme was just “Butter,” like shea butter. We printed photos of sticks of butter and made the punch cooler look like a butter churn…)
Mostly, I love having all my silly little friends in one place. Most of my college friends are spread out in different states and I (famously) live across the ocean. People don’t really get on international flights to come to your “Whore-loween” party. They do, however, fly in for a wedding.
I booked a GORGEOUS (!!) home for a weekend in Brighton (a gay seaside town in England). Events included a welcome champagne toast on Brighton Pier and, of course, the happiest day of my life: the wedding day. The ceremony itself was to take place at the Airbnb over the course of a big meal, with the speeches interspersed, as well as a proclamation of marriage at the end (given by myself, acting as both the bride and the officiant). Guests took me as their lawfully wedded Shea.
I don’t know how to get you to believe me because I often talk in hyperbole, but this actually was the happiest day of my life.
My happiest moment stands out to me so clearly. It wasn’t eating the perfect meal we cooked (Citrus Halloumi Salad and Crispy Chili Tofu) or when I descended the stairs my in 9 foot veil. It wasn’t during the Friday night welcome event when we almost got kicked off Brighton Pier (it was non-alcoholic Prosecco, I swear!). It wasn’t even the thoughtful, heart wrenching speeches given by my perfect friends, which had me in a puddle from the moment they started.
My favorite moment came early on the day of the ceremony, when I expect to feel overwhelmed. 11 AM on ceremony day and I was running behind. I needed to cook, set the table, finally hang all my decorations I’d been thrifting for the year, and strap my tits into a perfect lavender linen suit with cut outs (lavender was my bridal color, duh). I knew my friends would help — I had placed a very visible to do list in the center of the house to make this easier. Still, I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to express my exact vision. That I’d have to do everything myself to get it the way I wanted it.
My favorite moment came then, when I looked around and realized my friends had jumped into action. All around me, the people I love were scurrying around making my vision come true. They set the table, prepped the halloumi salad, blew up a LOT of balloons. They took turns as the official wedding photographer. They brought wine and hotcross buns and tea sandwiches and candles and cards. They set up a photobooth and hung lights. They purchased batteries and used bobby pins to open the battery packs of six Peppa Pig walkie talkies that I thought would be funny to have, which, in the end, only emitted a demonic static that made it impossible to understand what anyone was saying. They assembled my wedding cake from two different sized M&S rainbow cakes and a Bratz doll cake topper (I did weep when I cut into the cake during the reception to discover the inside was also rainbow… love is love etc etc). They assembled an aisle out of flowers and lavender tea lights from Poundland (yes, the British equivalent of the dollar store is called Poundland). They went out and bought purple flowers to assemble into bouquets for each of the guests, without me ever asking. Friends who couldn’t make it sent me a playlist for the reception or helped conceive the menu or sent very enthusiastic texts about pictures of me in my bridal outfit.
They waited patiently as my 1 hour get ready time turned into 2 (boob tape… we need to halt all AI development until we figure out a better solution to boob tape). They did my makeup and patiently waited for me to figure out if I liked it (I did). They acted as wedding coordinators. They figured out what order to proceed into the dining room. They showed up in ELEGANT and SEXY outfits, per my request.
They cheered me on as I entered the dining room, and again as I forced them to let me enter again so it could be exactly right. They gave beautiful, thoughtful speeches about me (each one about a topic starting with S, H, E, and A). They plated the food, brought it to the table, and cleared. They poured wine and pretended to know things about wine.
They laughed and played games and sang “Unwritten” by Natasha Beddingfield as I cut the cake. They celebrated each of my 3 outfit changes. They ordered pizza for the lull between the reception and when the gay bars opened for dancing. When a friend’s favorite jacket was accidentally taken by a stranger at the gay bar, they chased the stranger into a Subway to ask for it back. They danced with me until the wee hours of the night.
They woke up early the next day to vacuum all the confetti out of the carpet to protect my Airbnb rating. They packed up all the food and decor and forgave me when I ran down in a tizzy 10 minutes before check out trying to stuff it all into my suitcases. They thanked me for having them, as if they hadn’t just given me the greatest birthday gift I’d ever received.
Over the past year or so of planning, the biggest question I got was “Who are you marrying?” There was obviously no spouse. No fellow bride joining me down the aisle. I rolled my eyes when people asked if I was marrying myself (how ridiculous!). I wasn’t marrying anyone. I was just having a wedding. To me, a wedding is a snapshot of a specific moment in time. You get to have a lot of the people you love from that time in your life under one roof. Some of them are friends I’ve had for 10 years and some I’ve only met in the last year. In my vows, I told my friends that the best part of being a grown up is doing what you want. I thanked them for taking planes and trains to watch me get married to no one in a 9 foot veil. They did that just because I wanted them to be there, and because they wanted to come.
Your friends want to show up for you. Give them the opportunity.
listened to this week: Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER
This made me feel like I was there with you. Such a beautiful special day for a very special Shea. xx