An Interesting Week in a Person’s Life

When you get married, it is a whirlwind of a week. Usually, you are still young, or at least young at heart, and it goes by fast, like a Formula One race car on the streets of Monaco.

A far more interesting week is the week your son or daughter gets married. You have more time to reflect, more time to think about the future, and what it all means. For over a year, the wedding seemed far off in the distance, but suddenly it is on your doorstep, and you find yourself on YouTube figuring out how to tie a bowtie.

What I’ve learned this week ranges from practical to mindful zen, all while dealing with details, planning, worries, and the production that a wedding really is. It truly is an interesting week.

I wanted to share a few of my lessons learned:

Expectations rule the experience.

Never expect perfection. Hope for very good. That leaves room for a few things to stray from the plan, but also leaves room for upside surprises. In hindsight, I think these are great seeds and sprouts to plant in your kids’ heads from the day they are old enough to comprehend the concepts. You can’t start when someone is 25 or 30.

Everything costs more than you thought.

That is fine, because this only happens once (hopefully). Complaining on the week of the wedding won’t fix your checkbook, but it will ruin your joy — and everyone else’s joy — if you let it.

Empathy is everything in fast-moving moments.

The bride, the groom, the families — everyone will have their own perspective, and it won’t match yours. Seeing the world through your daughter’s eyes, your wife’s eyes, or even your wedding coordinator’s eyes is a blessing. During this week, I realized empathy should not be reserved for special occasions. It is a skill to practice 24/7/365 in daily life — and it’s worth rethinking how often we actually use it.

Weddings should be peaks of optimism.

No one stands at the altar or gazebo actually thinking about “worse” in the for-better-or-worse part of the vows. Leave worldly realism and cynicism at the door. Your mission is to make the event better. Nothing matters more than hopes and dreams, so never rain on the parade.

Don’t let regret sneak in.

It is easy to look back and wish you had done more before your daughter begins her more independent chapters. Don’t. Most of us, in the moment, made the best decisions we could with the information we had. What matters is staying engaged and connected from this day forward.

Be kind, gentle, and helpful.

Many people are not calm under pressure. Don’t add to the challenges of this important week. More broadly, the world today doesn’t assign enough value to kindness and gentleness. Too often we reward only winning, competition, and loudness. These quieter traits are not weakness — they are strength, and they are needed now more than ever, during weddings, but also during daily trials and tribulations.

Optimists, not pessimists, change the world. Optimists have great marriages and raise great kids. Optimists light the eternal flame of hope on wedding days. If you are given the privilege of offering a speech, embrace the duty with optimism — and with more practice than most would expect.

—I.M. Optimisman

PS. If you plan a destination wedding, arrive several days early. Expect hours spent steaming out the wrinkles from packing — spread across more than one day. Don’t wait until hours before the event to inspect the wardrobe.