the wedding warrior

when the deluge of spring wedding announcements began earlier this year, i decided to put myself on a wedding hiatus. generally speaking, weddings are not all that fun. they are usually filled (generally speaking) with mediocre food, bad music and people you don't know, while the people you do know (presumably the bride and/or groom) are too busy to spend much time talking to you or anyone else, and may or may not even remember you were there in the first place (generally speaking). so, when the wedding flood began, i decided i had spent plenty of my adult life (not to mention income) going to weddings, thank you very much, and i was done. there were a few necessary exceptions to this rule (cousin trevor, thanks for appreciating the sacrifice) but, generally speaking, i had a wonderful and wedding-free summer. and i saw no need to put an end to a good thing.

i made another exception a few weeks ago, however, when a college friend, dallan, got married. another dear friend from college, chris, came to town for the festivities, so i decided to join in as well. and, i am so glad i did! at first i thought i wouldn't be glad because i a) had to drive to lehi (at least they say it was lehi, but it might as well have been another state for how out-of-the-way it was) and b) walked in late to a very nice, sit-down dinner at a country club (i'm classy like that). but, when i sat down, there were two more great friends from college, mike and brian! gasping, squeaky-surprised greetings and hand waving ensued (from me, not them. they seemed to take it all in easy stride) and the rest of the evening was a delightful reunion. (i would also like to say, for the record, that the food was delicious, the music was lovely, and dallan came over to talk to use several times. like i said, there are exceptions.) i promised to immortalize the event on this here blog, for all to see, so here you go. (left to right: brian, mike, me, chris. dallan is the terrified groom in the middle of the bottom picture.)




the evening also got me to thinking about old and new friends, and old and new selves. there are lots of things that have changed since we were last all together. i, for one, am way more hilarious now than i was in college (right?), and i have cuter bangs. i also have a lot more experience and confidence and knowledge about myself, what i want and where i am going. and i think everyone else would say the same thing (except maybe for the bangs). mike and brian are married with babies, chris has started a career and a life in california, but they could all still come together to celebrate the success of a friend (or a "buddy" as i guess the dudes say), and in a lot of ways nothing was different at all. it was just the same old, easy fun we always had. thanks, pals, for a worthy exception to the no-wedding rule.