I went to a wedding today of two people I grew up in the youth group with. Their names are Paul and Alyssa. Alyssa is one year older than me; Paul is 6 years older than me. Paul liked Alyssa for a long, long, long time. He liked her even when he went off to Kentucky for seminar. I don't know when he finally told her, but they started dating and suddenly saw each other, as my youth pastor said, for the first time. They belong together. They do work together well. They're going to have a most beautiful life.

I saw several people there that I haven't seen in a LONG time. Our church went through a lot of changes while I was in the youth group and we lost several families to other churches. But at this wedding, since both Paul and Alyssa grew up in the youth group, all those families came back with their kids, who I also grew up with in the youth group. I hardly recognized Andy F, but I recognized his brother Jeff in an instant. Jeff's grown a full beard, but his haircut's the same and his eyes are the same. He's really, really good-looking. Okay, he's gorgeous. All the girls in the youth group had crushes on him, not excepting me. :) I got over him as a high school crush; he was kind of stuck on himself in the youth group (likely from knowing all those girls liked him :) ). But, boy, he's still very handsome! The beard doesn't even make him less so; in fact, I'd say more. But enough about him, LOL. I'm such a girl.

I came to write about the bouquet toss. They called "all the single men" up first for the tossing of the garter. My friend Justin and also Jeff were called up by name--they were too chicken to go up at first. They didn't even stand in the group to catch the garter; they just sort of stood to the side. LOL.

Anyway, I decided from the start that I would go up when "all the fine-looking, single women" were called. Why? To support Alyssa. Okay, and also because I had a slight hope that maybe I'd catch the bouquet.

I went up with the three bridesmaids. I felt a little awkward up there, and so I grabbed Alyssa and whispered, "You should call Brooke to come up here!" I had been sitting with Brooke, who was also a little chicken to come up. LOL. But Alyssa took my suggestion and called her up. ;) She stood next to me, behind the bridesmaids. There were also one or two other girls behind us.

Alyssa threw the bouquet. It was longer than I thought it would be; I thought it would go straight to the girls in front of me, but they didn't even put their hands up! That's what you're supposed to do at a bouquet toss, isn't it? I put my hands up. In fact, my hand did touch it. Had I closed my fingers I would've caught it.

But instead I let it bump off my hand. It fell behind Brooke and I and hit the floor. Brooke picked it up. So she was hailed as the bouquet-catcher.

Jealous? No, I wouldn't say that. Ashamed is more like it. I shouldn't have been such a chicken. And why was I, anyway? Why didn't I let that bouquet fall to me?

I've come up with three reasons. See what you think of them.

1. I was afraid the superstitions might be true.
2. I was afraid the superstitions might be false.
3. I was afraid of being the center of attention, whether the superstitions were true, false or otherwise.

I don't think I'll forget that moment where I almost caught the flowers. I remember the velvety soft feel of the petals. I remember thinking, if I caught them, it would be by the flowers and I'd destroy the beautiful bouquet. I remember watching a white petal fly off as a result of my hand hitting it. I remember being suprised the flowers were real. All the bouquets were so arranged and so brilliantly colored that they had looked fake to me. I remember turning rather slowly around as I watched the beautiful bouquet fall right to the ground. I remember seeing Brooke's expression of uncertainty as she bent down toward them--like, "Am I going to pick these up?" And I remember going over in my head, in a flash, what had just happened, committing every detail to memory as I relayed them just now. I wondered if anyone had seen my hand hit those flowers, and if they were going to cry out, "That bouquet rightfully belongs to Stephanie!" I wished someone would. And maybe the superstitions would be true. I thought, "No way Brooke's going to be the next married" and, "I'm going to be the next one married and then someone will come to me at my wedding, who was at this wedding, and will say, 'I knew you'd be the first one married. That bouquet was really supposed to be yours.'"

Do I believe those superstitions are true? No, not really. Not intellectually. Intellectually, I know all supersitions are just that--false beliefs. But my heart... As always, my heart wants things like that to be true.

-Stephanie

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