I have wedding on the brain as our eldest is getting married this weekend. In this poem, I imagine both the experience of my wife and my daughter who may one day be sitting in the seat of her mother and what that may be like for her.

One day you think I’ll have a wedding day;
I’ll love and be loved, have the wedding ring;
I’ll wear the dress and speak what lovers say;
All will be song as the lovers’ melody we’ll sing.

One day at last is your own wedding day—
The long longing has finally ended—
One more walk down the petaled aisle way
To stand for a life with your awaiting husband.

Someday (sooner than you thought possible): your daughter’s wedding day,
As a bride’s mother, you are the first to stand,
Holding close words and fears as a flowered bouquet
For this one who so readily gives away her hand.

And lying in wrinkles, you arrive at your Day;
Your worries and sins all washed away;
Your baptism made real (remade in glory not clay)
By the Groom who has waited longer for his own wedding day.

© Randy Edwards
artwork: “The Bride (the church/Ecclesia) and the bridegroom (Christ).” Artist: UNKNOWN; Illustrator of Petrus Comestor’s ‘Bible Historiale’, France, 1372. Technique: Miniature. Location: Museum Meermanno Westreenianum, The Hague.