Your Wedding is Auspicious

This thought has occurred to me several times, and maybe some of you ladies can relate.

Say you're dating someone who you have hopes of going further with, and they mention that they have a wedding the following night. After the initial fomo I tend to think it auspicious. At some point throughout the wedding, your date is bound to think about themselves in their friend's place- with you at their side. My theory is that if he likes this picture in his head, marriage will be closer to the forefront of his mind than it was before, and that's in your favor.

I generally cry by chuppahs anyway, thinking about my childhood with the kallah/chosson (especially if they dealt with hardship along the way) and how far they've come + the future that lies ahead of them now- but when I'm dating someone and go to a wedding I'm that much more thoughtful. Weddings are moving and it's normal to become wistful. If we didn't have the social reinforcement of big, simcha-filled weddings, I think fewer people would want to get married so quickly. I don't mean this in a bad way because in the end they are married and building Jewish homes (ignorance is bliss in that regard), but the big beautiful weddings that we experience so regularly B"H definitely keeps it on people's minds as something of an incentive.

Sometimes one can get emotional during a wedding and caught up in the awesome dancing and hairstyles instead of focusing on graduating to the next stage in life. As the famous saying goes, נשים דעתם קלות. There's a play on words that our teachers in high school warned us about (switch the ק to a כ): All that's on a woman's mind is to become a kallah. From very young we dream of our wedding day, wedding dress and all the festivities that an engagement brings, which takes our attention away from the fact that once sheva brachos is over you're married to the person and you have to get along. You're not a sparkling kallah anymore, but an everyday wife and mother. It's so easy to take the plunge of marriage to someone when clouded by the allure of a vort and engagement ring impending. I've seen it happen so many times, especially in those circles where the chosson and kallah date once or twice and don't see each other as much during the engagement. Some of my friends have these minhagim and it seemed like they were being "bribed" by their mothers and mother in laws with all the robe and shaitel shopping during the engagement, not to mention tons of jewelry, while barely seeing their chossons. Yet they were (kept) happy. It could be that this is only my non-chassidish biased observation of their courtships and if I was brought up this way I wouldn't even think to feel disappointed about not seeing my chosson, but I definitely think that all the apartment shopping would serve to distract me away from the purpose of marriage. Anyway both women and men can fall prey to this, so we all can benefit from being mindful.

Going to a friend's wedding naturally stirs up emotions in you to want to get married. Fun times of music and dancing aside- even the love and admiration that you see between the chosson and kallah causes a productive sort of envy. It makes you want to reach that stage too, and maybe even settle down with Mr./Mrs. Good Enough to achieve those ends. Setting the stage and priming someone for marriage is a healthy facilitation, assuming the person is ready to get married and for mostly all the right reasons.

Sometimes men really need every push they can get to settle down with someone, so I think that it's a lucky occurrence if your wedding coincides with my relationship. You may not have realized it, but your wedding was a good influence and I appreciate it.

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The other side of me says that men are nowhere nearly as deep-thinking as I'd like, so a wedding might just be a passive experience through their thick heads (sorry boys, you've let me down... some of you). Do you think there is a difference in the emotions running through a single girl versus single guy at their friend's wedding?