Since 2018
How we got here
Nobody asks for the long version at a wedding, because there is cake to get to and somebody is always blocking the aisle. So here it is early, in three parts, with the boring years left out.
Chapter 1, 2018
A bus going the wrong way
Nora got on the 14 to Larkspur because it was raining and she was not paying attention. Sam was already on it, going home from a shift, reading a paperback with the cover torn off. She asked what it was. He lied, badly, because he had forgotten the title. They rode past her stop by eleven blocks.
Chapter 2, 2021
The apartment with the bad oven
Two years of takeout because nothing baked evenly on the left side. We learned to cook anyway, badly at first, then well enough that people started asking to come over. Most of the recipes at the wedding dinner came out of that kitchen.
Chapter 3, 2024
One very persistent dog
Biscuit arrived as a foster for two weeks and stayed for good, which is how most things go around here. He will not be at the wedding. He does not handle strings quartets, or strangers, or joy, especially well.
The proposal
On a cold dock, in October, with cold hands
Sam had a speech. It was four paragraphs long, it had a section about lighthouses, and he had been practicing it in the car for three weeks. What he actually said, once he was down on one very wet knee, was “okay so, the thing is,” and then nothing at all for about nine seconds.
Nora said yes before he found the rest of it. We went back to the car and ate the emergency sandwiches. The lighthouse paragraph has never been recovered.
From the wedding party
Some threats, kindly meant
These three lines are placeholders. Swap in real ones from your people, or delete the section.
“I have been waiting nine years to give this speech. It is already too long.”
“Nora made me try on four jackets. The fourth one was the first one.”
“If Sam cries before the vows, I am collecting from six people.”
Or read the practical bits first. Both are short.