Frontwards

Monday March 5th, 2006.
Wedding day.

“Holy fucking fuck.” I put my hands back over my face. I couldn’t let myself believe that it was me in that mirror. That pretty girl with the gorgeous hair and the perfect skin and the beautiful dress. That was just some stranger passing by a window. She certainly couldn’t be me. Could she?

Kate took my hands and lowered them gently (as gently as Kate is capable of being) back down to my sides. “Fuck,” she said quietly. “Look at you.”

But it was hard, of course, to do so. At least without ruining my make-up. So I just sort of stared vacantly into the mirror. Beyond the reflection. Until my eyesight started to blur. Nobody else in the room said anything for a long time. There was Kate and Alice and Linda and Frank’s cousin Lacey, the flowergirl and Carla, the hair and make-up lady. And they were all completely silent as they stared at me and I stared at me.

“This is real, isn’t it?” I whispered after what seemed like forever. Finally I managed to focus back onto myself and I stared deep into my own eyes and I looked just as scared as I felt. In a good way, of course.

Linda let out a small laugh and wiped some tears from her face. I liked to think they were tears of happiness and not tears of ‘oh my god why is my son marrying this stupid slut’ but you never know. “It sure is, honey,” she smiled, coming over to squeeze my hand. She looked at me through the mirror. “I’m so glad to have you joining my family today.”

Jesus, woman, way to make me ruin my freakin’ eyeliner. Carla was on me like a shot, scolding me in a very stereotypical Jamaican-lady fashion for something that I couldn’t control. All, “Hey, watch it woman before your mascara bleeds all down your pretty face.”

And then my face was fixed and not two seconds later Gerard’s head was poking around the door telling us it was almost go time. Holy fucking shitbags on toast.

“Right,” Alice said sternly as we left the little chapel room thingy. “Have you got all your somethings?”

I checked myself and nodded. Old: silver earrings. New: the beautiful bouquet of white daisies (shut up it counts). Borrowed: Linda’s white gold bracelet. And blue: the alarmingly comfortable suck-it-all-in spandex number that was currently allowing my beautiful dress to skim over my ever-growing bumpy belly.

I’m glad everybody else seemed to know what they were doing because everything we’d run through last night at the rehearsal had completely escaped me and I was in something of a trance. But thankfully Kate and Alice took the lead and told me all I had to do was walk when I was told to. And then we were standing at those big wooden doors they have in churches and Lacey was sashaying down the aisle, throwing rose petals like a pro, and then Kate and Alice were linking arms with Gerard and Mikey respectively and then a minute later an usher was telling me to go and without any of my knowledge my feet had started to move for me.

I’ve never walked into a room and had everybody stand up for me, and me alone. It’s bizarre. I can’t even tell you. Fuck. I didn’t even know most of these people and here they were, all standing and staring at me and smiling encouragingly and whispering and crying and...fuck. It’s overwhelming and suddenly it made sense why people normally have people walking down with them – not to give them away, but to prop them up and keep them moving because honest to god I will never know how I did it.

I believe – truly believe, my friends – that the only reason I managed to not fall over or faint or freeze or otherwise fuck up as I walked down the longest aisle in the entire world, is because as soon as I was in that room, I saw my soulmate, shuffling around at the other end and something – love, I guess – was pulling me towards him.

And then I was in front of him, and he was in front of me, and he was grinning like a fucking moron and I guess I must have been, too, and he gave me one short kiss on the lips and I was so happy I thought I might burst into a rainbow or a thousand pieces of glitter.

“Fucking wow,” he whispered as we parted, and I saw a little glimmer of moisture in his eyes. “You look...” He couldn’t even finish but luckily I knew what he was going for so I just nodded and smiled and we both let out a little giggle.

Then the priest had to ruin it, didn’t he, by bloody talking. To be honest I’d completely forgotten he was there. And behind him there was this big Jesus on a cross, which was quite distracting. And behind Frank there was Gerard and Mikey and who I guessed was Frank’s dad who I’d never even fucking met. And behind me there was my bridesmaids and Linda. And beyond them there was a room full of strangers. But I had forgotten all about all of them, as if there were only Frank and me in the entire world at that moment and nothing else mattered.

Most of what Gary Father Coleman was going on about went right through me. How awful is that? My own wedding and I wasn’t even listening to his (I’m sure) very apt and insightful readings about love and romance and Jesus and what have you. But I didn’t care about that. I cared about Frank, the man who was holding my hands and looking into my eyes and promising that he would love me forever.

We wrote our own vows. How very fashionable of us, right? It’s fucking hard writing vows, you know.

Frank went first (after the Father had finished rambling nonsense and everybody had sang some hymn I’d never heard before and I pretended to sing along and Frank pretended he wasn’t laughing at me).

“Daisy,” he began, and already we were both starting to cry. Somewhere I could hear Carla tutting away but I’m not sure if I was delirious. “I’m not sure I can say anything right now that I haven’t told you before or you don’t already know. From the moment we met I knew that there was something special about you. I knew that you were different from all the other women I had ever met, and I knew that you would change my life one day. You are the most beautiful person that I have ever met, inside and out, and I love who I’ve become since you’ve been in my life. We’ve known each other a short time but we’ve already been through so much – most of which was my own fault – that I know we’ll be together forever. I’ve made some mistakes, Daisy, but what’s amazing is that you love me enough to forgive me for them, and I love you enough to learn from every single one. I would never purposefully do anything to hurt you. I promise that I will be there for you every single moment of every single day. I promise to sing to you if you can’t sleep. I promise to be the best husband and father that I can be. I promise to love you more than anybody else on this planet can ever love another, until the day that I die.”

Well shit. The whole place was in tears. Even his dad was weeping. How the fuck do I top that?

The Father turned to me, all kindly and smiling, and softly said, “And Daisy, now it’s time for your vows.”

You can labour away for hours trying to think of the perfect words that capture how you really feel, and what you really want to say deep down in that mess of muscle they call a heart, and you can rehearse it until you’re sick, but when you’re there, standing in front of the man you love on your wedding day, it doesn’t even matter because you won’t remember a damn thing.

So I had to wing it, didn’t I.

I took a deep breath and tried to go back to that place where it was just me and Frank and nobody else. “I never thought that I would get married,” I started shakily, trying to choke back my emotion. “Because I never thought I would find a guy who could make me believe that love can be like it is in the movies. I thought it was all fantasy. One night on a train changed all of that. I met you, and nothing has ever been the same since. Our relationship may not always be perfect, and we may not be the most conventional couple in the world, but what matters is that we’re happy.” I hesitated for a second because like I said, this is fucking hard to do on the spot. But Frank’s teary eyes and his crooked smile made it easier to know what I wanted to say. “I never used to believe in soulmates,” I continued. “I used to think that people were just people and that was that. But you’ve changed that, too. I believe that you are the only person in the world who can make me feel like I am perfect without even having to say a word. I believe that we can last, for better or worse, because we are strong together. You’re my best friend, Frank-” I heard Kate mutter something from behind me but chose to ignore her – “and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life being married and having a family with the only person in the world who I have ever truly loved.”

Well, that’ll do it. When I finally looked away from Frank and back at Father Coleman, even he was crying. Good lord. “And finally can we have the rings?” he said when he’d pulled himself together.

Oh yes, I had forgotten about that.

Gerard stepped forward and handed us each a ring. His eyes were all red. “I can’t believe you made me cry, you bastards,” he mumbled, just quietly enough so that dear old Father Coleman couldn’t hear, and then he stood back again.

Admittedly, as I was in quite an emotional daze, I did hold out the wrong hand at first and a couple of people chuckled at me. But I was so happy that it didn’t matter, I just laughed and corrected myself. And then we were in business and the rings were on and the Father was saying those final words: “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

We didn’t even wait for his permission to be kissing. I was far too excited for that. I just grabbed my husband’s face and pulled it into mine and kissed the shit out of him and I could feel him smiling against my own smile and it was wonderful. I’ve never been quite so happy in all of my life.