Human Moments

My favorite wedding moments are rarely the ones on the timeline.   I've seen a lot of beautiful ceremonies, spectacular rooms, gorgeous flowers and very good parties.  But those aren't always the things I remember.  I remember the father who stood quietly for a moment after seeing his daughter in her gown, with a single tear in his eye.  The couple who just stood on the dance floor and promised themselves to each other.  The granddaughter that danced with her dying grandfather for the last time, the man that raised her and gave her away at the altar.  The photographer who dropped his camera and helped the mother of the bride and her friend sew a bridesmaid into her dress, just because his dad had been a tailor.  The bride who dedicated her bouquet to her mother who was, sadly, not sitting in the room.  The flower girl who, halfway up the aisle, turned and ran crying.   Nobody scheduled those moments.  Nobody planned those moments.  They just happened.

   And maybe that's why I remember them.  We spend months planning a wedding down to the minute.  Good planning allows a couple to stop thinking about what comes next.  The human moments are what make a wedding day special, memorable, unique.  These are moments that no one anticipates, expects, slips into a slot on a timeline.  But the point was never the timeline.  The point was to allow those moments to just happen and  to remember the moments that could never have been planned.   The human moments are the ones that survive long after the flowers die, long after the party is over, long after the timeline is thrown away.  Weddings are about human moments.  They are not about what time dinner was served or the cake was cut.   So, as you plan down to the smalles detail of your wedding, leave room for the human moments.  They matter!