The Best Day Ever (The Wedding Poem Post)

One of the most incredible ways I got to bring my writing into my practical life was for our wedding. Sure, all my childhood dreams involved the "til death us do part" rote, but when it came down to it, I discovered that I couldn't possibly get married with another's words.

Thankfully, my now-husband agreed. Well, he wasn't quite as self-righteous about it, but he was cool with me writing our entire wedding ceremony. Woo hoo! Talk about a captive audience. I knew no one would dare facing the wrath of my mother if they got bored in the middle of it and wanted to walk out.

It was a ton of fun to write the ceremony; my stepmom helped with research on different wedding traditions from relevant cultures - largely Irish, German and of course American. Writing it was by far one of the most fun parts of planning the wedding. (At one point, I probably would've said one of the only fun parts, but happily Time has dimmed those memories.)

Among other ceremony components, I knew I wanted to include a reading of a love poem I'd written for my Best Beloved. But when I got to the point of deciding which poem to include - and after nearly seven years together, there were a lot - I found that none of them were quite what I wanted to say on this occasion.

So I wrote a new poem.

Here it is, in all its copyright-protected glory. (If you want to use it, just post a comment to ask.) Thanks and love to my maid of honor, Kate, one of my best friends from Sarah Lawrence College, who gave a really good reading of it during the ceremony.


true love

how to put words around the truth of love
the looks, the smells, the small private joke
how to say what we are, what you mean to me –

my own tongue is too clumsy.
let the stars put it into words for us.

let the wind sing the truth of love
as it whips round the corners of our home,
battering against the walls
behind which we curl, in shared sleep.

let the curving road, sun-dappled, disappearing under our car
say where the path of love may lead.
who knows but we may best know love
changing a flat tire by the side of the road.

and perhaps it is the impossible definition of love
that makes us all long to know it,
for the only chance
to understand love
is to live it.

let the next adventure take us
where it will, my love

I will go with you.