This piece is from issue eighteen of Oh Comely. You can buy the issue here or subscribe here.

Weddings are the only chance everyone gets to put on all their clothes for best and pretend like they’ve been asked to a really fancy party. The women wear extra eyelashes and spangles, and dresses that go tighter than their legs at the bottom so that their knees keep bashing into one another. The men all wear shiny shoes and Leeds United cufflinks and red faces because they’ve had to do the top button on their smart work shirt and then spend twenty minutes swearing at the bathroom mirror about how difficult it is to do up a stupid bloody bow tie.

People take pictures of each other at weddings so they can prove to everyone afterwards what a perfect day it was. And the good thing about photographs is that you can never tell whether someone has an itchy neck or sore feet, or that the bride’s mum was a bit uneven with the fake tan, or that the groom’s breath smells of whisky. All the cracks get smoothed over until, after a while, it’s like they were never there at all.

But without the cracks, all these weddings start to melt into each other. When we’re old, we’ll probably just remember our twenties as a single continuous journey up and down the M5 in an underpowered hire car, bundling with our suit carriers from one three-star hotel bedroom to another. And when our red wine lips and early evening hangovers have faded, the only thing we have left is the photographs. And we’ll sit with our wives or our husbands in our armchairs in our homes, and we’ll laugh as we watch Four Weddings and a Funeral again on Channel Four,and wonder how there was ever a time when we used to think it was a tragedy, not a comedy.

When I think about my sister’s wedding, I hope that it’s the cracks that I remember. Because perfection is okay, I guess, but it’s the cracks that make things human. And sometimes, being human is better than being perfect.

I hope that I remember the age that I spent in my hotel bathroom trying to make my hair look alright, and the half hour I spent sitting in my suit on the end of the bed, nervously flicking through fifty foreign television channels and watching the clock crawl. And I hope that I remember the five minutes I spent in the best man’s room, as the other ushers bounced off the walls and on the balls of their feet like footballers in the dressing room before a derby match, all taking turns to swear at the mirror about how difficult it is to do up a stupid bloody cravat.

I even hope that I remember standing on my own in the hotel lobby as all my sister’s friends lined up for photos and my uncles bowled about in their pale summer suits with their taxi driver chat, and my dad’s golfing mates stood around looking uncomfortable in shirtsleeves and loafers, while their wives sat primly on pale cream sofas in bright flowery dresses, and waited for the coach to arrive.

And I hope I remember the way everybody started to chatter excitedly when the coach pulled up at what looked like the last building on the island, and the way the waves beat against the white painted walls of the venue, and the way the sun was pitched just past its peak in a cloudless sky.

And I hope that I remember the flash of embarrassment I felt with everyone’s eyes on me, just for a moment, as I walked with my mum down the aisle. And I hope I remember seeing my auntie and my cousin, red in the face and howling with laughter as a gale whipped in from the sea, and the rabbi shouted over it in singsong broken English about how the wind must be a blessing from God. Above all, I hope that I never forget the way I felt when I saw my little sister in her wedding dress for the first time: to see in a moment the child that she was, and the woman she had become.

There will always be the photos of the ceremony and the speeches, of the dinner and the dancing, and of my sister and her husband, newly-wed and beaming for all eternity in the Spanish sun. But nobody takes photos of the cracks, which is why we have to make sure we remember them. 

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