have kindly sponsored
This past week my best friend drove me out to the future site of her wedding and reception. It's to take place at a beautiful yacht club on Belle Isle, a little island in view of the downtown skyline on the Detroit River.
It seems she and I have always tackled the pinnacle moments in our life together, therefore it's really appropriate rather than coincidental that we would be planning our weddings at the same time. We're the kind of friends who know what's on the other's mind at a glance and finish each other's sandwiches as well as sentences. We fought only once when we were seventeen and on vacation together. We were driving from LA to San Diego and to torture me she refused to play anything but the cheesy Hispanic radio station the entire two-hour drive. Amazingly enough, our friendship survived this ordeal.
People have warned me about the wedding fever, a particularly vicious infection which overtakes brides and forces them to think only of flower arrangements, see only in shades of pink, and speak only in noxious tones of love. They become a general irritant to all their friends and family and there is no cure (well except maybe the honeymoon). Fortunately, neither of us has been overtaken by this epidemic so we've been able to enjoy what basically amounts to a huge shopping excursion.
When I saw the beautiful ballroom where we would be dancing, eating, and celebrating next April in honour of her and her groom, I was taken aback. I realised that in another month, when I move back to London, I will no longer be able to appreciate in person these little milestones, which together will create one of the most memorable evenings of our lives. Everyday I'm reminded how this one decision has changed my life in ways I hadn't considered.
On the way home we talked about looking (again) for dresses next week. She asked me where I thought we should go and I said I knew the perfect place for her to look, where she would definitely find her dress.
'London?' she said.
'You've got it,' I replied.
19 July 1999, Stacie Lewis