This past weekend, two of my oldest friends in Los Angeles got married. The ceremony was great, with lots of drinking, great music and carousing with old and new friends. More on that in a moment.
The story of Satish and Jessie, the wonderful couple in question, is long and filled with drama (in a good way). Not to sound like a douche bag, but I was there at the beginning. They had one particular class together, one of those classes that are so complicated that it destroys friendships, and were part of the same group. I came along for a meeting early in the semester at Jessie's house and watched her argue with Satish. Even though they clearly disagreed about several things, they were clearly on a certain wavelength. Since Jessie was the only one with a car at the time, she drove everybody home. She dropped Satish off at his place, and as we watched him make his way up to the front door, she said something along the lines of "I think I want to make out with him."
My reaction: "Go for it!"
Flash-forward to this past weekend. The wedding ceremony was held at a Buddhist college in Aliso Viejo, and among the guests were Jessie's big Filipino family, Satish's big Italian family, and both of their friends, who are one of the most eclectic and international groups of people you could hope to find anywhere. It was classic and elegant, with the poofy dress, the tuxedos, the centerpieces, but it was loose and free in a way that all weddings ought to be.
In episodes of Six Feet Under where primary characters died their funerals would be packed with extras you had never seen before. That struck me as weird, even though I could look to other funerals I've been to, such as my grandmother's in 2006, when old neighbors and my mother's high school friends were showing up. Similarly, in the weddings I've been to in the last few years (and there have been several) there were always those people who you didn't know, the guests you never spoke to, the guests who were just extras and who you'd totally have forgotten about if they weren't walking through the background of your snapshots. All I ever saw on Six Feet Under were the lead characters, and their relationships with other lead characters. This weekend I feel like I had something of an epiphany. Those scenes from the HBO show finally made sense when I looked around and saw all these people who I had never met, but who were there, just like me, to show Satish and Jessie their love and support. I am finding that, from my very selfish perspective, I see my interactions with people as being the only events that really take place. Why would they know anybody I've never met? Why would I not know any other people that they know? Because, I know now, we are humans. Those people I have never met are all humans. I grant that this revelation probably doesn't make sense to anyone else in the world, but for me it's a bit profound. No wonder people are still dismissing me by saying "Oh, you're young."
If you look at depictions of weddings in popular American culture, they are usually pretty staid, sober affairs. Not only have they been manufactured by award-winning production designers with the backing of a major studio, but there is a formal going-through-the-motions quality that seems to be present only when you're dealing with a white, WASPy family. The only loose weddings seem to be the 'ethnic' ones, and that's usually because they are some sort of homogeneous gathering for a particular minority. I look back on Jessie and Satish's wedding, and I am struck by what a microcosm of America the whole thing is. Especially when the newlyweds (Indian and Pinay respectively) and their Bridesmaids (Indian, Middle Eastern, African American) and Groomsmen (Indian, Pakistani, Mexican) jumped on the dancefloor for a surprise rendition of Michael Jackson's Thriller dance (led by a white girl). Meanwhile, Satish's adoptive Italian family, Jessie's Filipino family and everyone else in the room clapped along and hooted and cheered.
Saying that a particular wedding is more American than another doesn't qualify it as better or worse, but this one, with it's white minority and melting pot pastiche of guests, was the most fun I've ever had.
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