This video went viral a few years ago. Your mom and I watched this together again just now. I remember the first time we watched it together. We thought (a) that was adorable, and (b) it reminded us how much we loved our wedding. Similar reaction tonight when we watched it again. I’m struck by how much it encapsulates a feeling of joy and a sense of affirming the positive in life. That’s why I wanted to share it with you.
This video has become SUCH a cliche, but it really resonates with your mother and me for two reasons:
- At least once in your life, you should do something this whimsical. Life in general is usually lived way to seriously given how short it is. One of the things I love about this video is how much this group of friends will probably always treasure this memory. It was a fun thing to do together, and it was an act of creation vs. an act of just passive consumerism. This couple didn’t just write a check to a wedding coordinator to have a turnkey wedding, they personalized it. They made something happen that was memorable, something that (at the time of this blog post) has been viewed over 75 million times on the web. Not too bad.
- Weddings are supposed to be fun. Weddings tend to be very drab and formal events. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life, why not have fun with it? Your mother and I didn’t do anything quite like this obviously, but we look back on our wedding with pride and feel like we made it our own and didn’t just go through the motions. We made sure everything from the readings to the service itself felt like “us”. We also spent a lot of time coming up with our own playlist for the reception. We didn’t want to hire a crappy DJ who would just play terrible music we hated. We wanted to hear our music – music you kids will recognize someday as the awful stuff you wish we would stop playing on family road trips, to which we will respond by accusing your generation of having terrible taste in music. Anyway, we worked together to craft a super-long playlist for the entire reception. We loved it, and our guests loved it. We look back on our wedding with no regrets at all. We loved it. I hope you can say the same for yourselves someday if you’re in that position.