The Old People at the Wedding

You won’t notice them at first. No one will. But they’ll be there, in the corners. Around the edges. Tucked away.

You won’t invite them into your pictures. Not the important ones, anyway. Not the ones that count. Years from now, you’ll see them in the background of a candid shot and smile, perhaps. But not today.

You’ve seated them far from the dance floor. Far from the head table, too. They’re somewhere behind the “work friends” and the “home friends,” back by the kitchen’s swinging door. When you stop by to say hello, it will be perfunctory. A squeeze on the shoulder; a “thank you so much for coming!” You won’t sit down beside them. They won’t expect you to.

They will chew their chicken and admire the dresses and clink their glasses. You won’t notice that their smiles are tinged with melancholy as they listen to the speeches of love and happily ever after. They will hide it well. Because this is a day for fairy tales, and they will see what the speech-makers don’t.

They will see your future.

Happily ever after, yes. Of course. And also a little bit more.

They will see your first year after your first baby: the so-called “hardest year of marriage.” This year will roll in like a wind storm, stirring up ever-shifting sands of responsibility, blame, and guilt. You will wonder how such bliss can be accompanied by such terror and anger. You will wonder if you are broken. If you thought to ask them, they would take your hand and tell you that they felt it, too. That everyone does.

If you thought to ask them. But they know that you won’t.

They will also see the devastating lay-off. The diagnosis that appears out of the blue. Addictions of varying flavors and strengths. Down payments and loan payments and deductible payments, each with the power to strangle. Disagreements over paint color that balloon into something more dire. They will see the time at the garden center when you stop in front of a pile of gravel, stare at the multitude of tiny gray rocks, and wonder—maybe out loud, or maybe just to yourself—if it was all a big mistake.

They will see the death of your first pet, and, eventually, your second. And all the other deaths—grandpa, friend, uncle, mom—that will march through your years like an invading army. Each time, you will have to depend on each other. And each time, you will learn if you can.

They will watch as your child morphs before your eyes from wide-eyed cherub to foot-stomping toddler to dour teen to occasional stranger. That last one will sting most of all. They know that you will have to learn, then, how to be something other than “parent.” How to be yourself again. How to return to being a better half to your better half, and if two halves still make a whole.

They will watch you dance your first dance on that cobbled-together, parquet floor, and they will see all the weeknights and errands. All the illnesses and sunny days. All the power struggles and new mattresses and graduations and address changes. They will see that perfect vacation at the lake. That long, cold winter when nothing will go right. The one thing you’ll say that you can’t take back. The birds that will chirp happily at your feeder, and the ones that will fly head-first into your wide, glass door.

They will see it all: for better and for much, much worse. And yet, when you greet them, they will say only, “Congratulations!” They will pat your smooth, unblemished hand and tell you that the cake is delicious. The best they’ve ever had. And you will float away, onto the next moment, not even realizing that you just received their wedding gift. Someday, you will know its value.

Not today, though. Today, they are just the old people at the wedding.

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(A version of this essay first appeared in WBUR’s Cognoscenti: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2022/08/05/marriageweddingboom-t-m-blanchet)

Trisha Blanchet is the author of Murder Like Magic (coming August 25, 2026, from Crooked Lane), The Neath Trilogy (Herrick’s End, Herrick’s Lie, and Herrick’s Key), and more. She’s also the producer and host of A Mighty Blaze Podcast, a member of the Tall Poppy Writers, and the founder of Operation Delta Dog: Service Dogs for Veterans (OperationDeltaDog.org).

Murder Like Magic < Preorder here!

The Neath Trilogy (Herrick’s End, Herrick’s Lie, and Herrick’s Key) < Get your copies here!

Operation Delta Dog: Service Dogs for Veterans < Learn more here!

A Mighty Blaze Podcast < Great author interviews here!

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