Last week I slipped into a wedding. I did not know the couple themselves but I went to school with the bride's parents forty years ago. Sometimes I look at the pretty people in the front pews and wish I could be there. But I felt unimportant and sat way at the back.

Yet there are perks from sitting there too. I could rubberneck when the flower girls were gently sent on their pilgrimage up the aisle, and see the littlest one dutifully dropping fistfuls of white petals across the stone floor. Her daddy tried to nudge her to walk simultaneously with flinging, which seemed like too much to expect of a girl not yet out of diapers who was herself named after a flower. The wind was playful that day and each time the back door opened for another gorgeous bridesmaid the petals took flight like a flock of doves. 

The bride was indeed breathtakingly lovely. She walked on her daddy's arm, and the white lace whispered behind her. I imagined the feelings a father has as he escorts his daughter into a new man's life. 

When it came time for the bride and groom to declare their vows, the minister held the microphone close enough to broadcast their voices. The groom choked up even as he began to speak, and I had the sense I was eavesdropping on a very private exchange. Their promises were tender, taylor made, and brimming with conviction. 

Part way through the special music, the lights went out and the violin/organ duet became a violin solo. The power was gone. In a minute the lights returned, and the organ slid back in. I have no idea what frantic scrambling happened behind the scenes to kick on the generator, and wondered if life suddenly became complicated for the caterer. 

Probably it would become a well worn story, told countless times over the years. I hoped it could be an analogy for how they would fuel their relationship when things got dark. 

The bride was beautiful. But there was a different kind of graciousness around her mother. She strode back down the aisle on her husband's arm, the same arm that had ushered their daughter an hour before.

But the latter relationship lasts for decades, while the former is for keeps. She smiled contentedly as the layers of her long gray gown fluttered like a brooke. This day was not about her, and yet it happened because of her. Her longtime marriage was the safe haven for this young woman to grow up in, to thrive in, to launch from.