I was recently asked to marry two friends, V & N. While I can’t say I’ve known them for a long time, I feel very connected to them, the bride in particular. When asked to be their officiant, I was quite surprised yet flattered. Although I will not be legally marrying them (bc God has not asked me to be an Ordained minister), I will be leading the ceremony in front of their 300 closest friends. This is quite a task. I’ve been taking notes here and there and thinking about my own wedding. Thinking about how so many people are so happy to get to the reception that I wonder how many actually listen to the words that others (and dare i say the bride and groom themselves) recite. Perhaps this will be good for my nerves if no one is actually listening. But for the couple’s sake, I hope they are at least 🙂

In trying to plan for this wedding I am thinking about the word love and how it has so many meanings. As a wordsmith and fan of all the nuances found in the English language, I am a sucker for homonyms and words with multiple meanings. Love doesn’t really fall into those two categories but it is probably one of the most subjective words we have. It can mean something different to all of us. I feel love when I look at my son every day. And I love being a wife, mother, daughter, friend and sister. We can say we love our job or we love our home. Those are feelings we have toward something, almost like an adjective. But how does one define love? How do you define love?

I remember the first time my husband told me he loved me. We were at a bar, listening to jazz music with friends in Tennessee. I had taken him WAY out of his comfort zone (he hates jazz) and drug him to Tennessee with me to see Trey Anastasio (he wasn’t a huge fan at the time) in concert. The next day, he went with me to a Tennessee football game (also a first) and on Sunday, went to meet my ENTIRE extended family. Somewhere in between all of the action-packed weekend events, he found love in those “firsts” with me. Without a doubt I can say he is the love of my life. I knew early on that our relationship was something special. Not one to jinx things, I cannot say i knew right away I would marry him. But i knew we had a love worth fighting for and figuring out.

To me, love is when you go from being in lust, you see someone’s faults and imperfections and you are okay with them because the good outweighs the bad. Love is unconditional in its realest form and sustains time and generations. Love is when you can wear your  yoga pants and a T-shirt and feel sweaty from the gym, hair a mess, and your husband tells you how beautiful you are. Love is your father playing on the ground with your son in a hilarious game of peekaboo. Love is two friends drinking wine, laughing so hard it comes out of their noses when retelling a hilarious story from their past. To me, love is all around in even the simplest of tasks.

I hope I will be able to find the words to make my two friends proud to have me unite them in matrimony. I hope to define love in a way that will resonate solely with them and make their day special. They probably didn’t know just how much I felt loved when they asked me to marry them, but I do. It is something I feel truly honored with and cannot wait to be a part of. Even if i don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Maybe I should recite the things I just wrote. Hmm…I wonder if V wears yoga pants?

Early love…