Lessons in Happiness

I went to what was hands-down the strangest wedding and reception last night. For starters it was a combination wedding/reception/baby shower. The groom was the brother of one of my closest friends. They’d already had a baby and been married in a courthouse ceremony but wanted the “official” thing, so it was kind of a redo, more for the mother of the bride's sake, I suspect.

Friends at my table kind of heckled the whole thing as a little “lower”. The carafes of wine at the tables were suspect, looking more like a strange rosé Kool-Aid. The open bar was bizarrely stocked. No bourbon just scotch, several bottles grenadine, rums I'd never heard of, and no lemons, only limes. The bar was supposed to be open from 7 - 11pm, but the bartender kept telling us, "Not yet!" The silverware was mismatched. The dinnerware was standard cafeteria issue. It was Mystery Meat Night with what I think was boneless chicken breasts and some sort of paper-thin Salisbury Steak’ish kind of thing. The mashed potatoes clearly came from a box, and the salad was a weird concoction with Lima beans and pigeon peas. After dinner the DJ got going with 80s music and a smoke machine that turned the reception into a weird retro-80s gay bar vibe. The entire thing, start to finish, from the front door to the back was what some people would politely call "tacky".

The entire evening though, I watched the room. Observing, I realized everyone there was truly happy. The bride and groom were all smiles, their parents were completely in their element, and everyone was dancing, laughing, drinking, taking pictures, shuffling around tables to visit, etc. Everyone was present and very much in the moment. No one there gave two shits about what the beef dish was supposed to be, if the silverware matched, or that the plates weren't fine china. It simply didn't matter. That's not what the evening was about. It was about all the individual joys of the evening and the collective joy of the room.

The evening was a tremendous life lesson about what genuine and unconditioned happiness is. I came home last night feeling uplifted, having had the time of my life, and I went to bed feeling like I get "it” just a bit more than I did before.