getting ready

October 10, 2020.
This is how I'll remember it: a morning of hair and makeup. And a playlist months in the making. Getting dressed. After the better part of a year, terrified, hoping I would be the bride he had imagined. Months of obsessing over the dress, the buttons, the Pinterest board. And then, crying over a bouquet, popping a bottle of champagne, and walking past a wooden swing-set, to see him.

Six months ago today, we found joy in the midst of a pandemic. We gathered our loved ones closest and made a whole weekend to celebrate our union. I am overwhelmed by this memory; how everything came together, the community that came out of holding love up higher than the noise. The more time removed from it, the more grateful I am for the way it wrapped us all up in its Saugerties embrace and spent a weekend cradling us. From piano sing-alongs and crowding in the kitchen to make everything perfect for a welcome dinner. My brother plying me with Shirley Temples, always close enough to make sure I was okay, the wind pushing us closer together. The Little Wedding that ​did. 

This is how I'll remember it: details and snapshots and everything just so.