I got married two weeks ago

On being a sucker for a love story

Chez Le Pere Lathuille, 1879 by Édouard Manet

Meeting

I moved to Michigan on December 30th, 2023. I didn’t know anyone, and my mom drove up with me to help me move in. (I’m adult enough to say I still need my mom.)

That first Sunday, my mom and I sat in a coffee shop across the street from a big white church. My mom, being a pastor, proposed we just pop in and check it out. Me, being a born sinner, was not interested in checking out a church randomly. I couldn’t imagine walking into a church without first researching online to see whether they’re a holding-snakes-kind-of-church or my kind of church.

But as we left the coffee shop, I heard one of my favorite songs by The Porter’s Gate coming from across the street. Still undeterred, I climbed into my car and turned my Spotify on shuffle. That exact song came on.

“Mom, maybe we should check that church out.”

I’ve been attending there ever since, and I arrived there two weeks ago for my wedding—for our wedding. I walked in and felt like I was walking into a miracle.

Marrying

I was nervous—two weeks ago—as I stood with my back turned to you before the first look. I—being the sucker I am—have watched countless first look videos on YouTube, and I was determined to not screw it up.

So I stood there, in the middle of the sanctuary, feeling all the feelings of years of longing for that exact moment.

Then I heard your voice and your laugh.

Everything melted. The nerves I was holding evaporated, and I remember just laughing with you. Both of us there and feeling everything and laughing.

I felt calm because I know your voice, and I know your laugh. I wasn’t marrying some unknown and scary quantity. I was marrying you, the woman I want to sleep next to every night of my life.

Meeting

The second weekend in Holland I went to a new coffee shop. I sat down at a table and opened one of probably twenty books in my backpack. Next to me two women sat at a table talking. I had a difficult time concentrating because I was transfixed by one of them. She sat there wearing glasses, and I thought she was potentially the prettiest woman I had ever seen in my entire life.

I am a firm believer that it is okay to ask a woman out in a coffee shop, that it all comes down to kindness and tact, but I decided against it for some reason that time. I’m still not sure why.

Marrying

Your dress was covered and hanging up in the back corner of your little apartment for weeks. You made me promise not to look at it.

I never did.

But then—a week and a half ago, after hearing your laugh—I turned around and saw it, saw you. I knew you were going to be beautiful, but I had no way of knowing just how beautiful, how stunning you were going to be standing there in front of me in that dress, in the middle of that sanctuary, mere minutes before it would fill with family and friends and everyone we hold dear.

I surprised myself by not crying, but when we sat down to share our private vows, I broke down. I had a hard time getting the words out. Everything—specifically you—was just so beautiful.

Meeting

I left that coffee shop sad I hadn’t said something, but the next day a miracle happened.

At church—that big white church across from the coffee shop—the same mysterious and lovely woman with glasses walked by me in the communion line. I was shocked. I decided that if I “ran into” her after church, I would ask her on a date. So, when the benediction ended and we all streamed into the narthex, I did lap after lap after lap like I was pacing around the promised land looking for her.

I couldn’t find her.

Marrying

I stood at the head of the aisle next to my pastor, looking out at all the wedding guests and preparing to walk to the front and wait for you there. I leaned over to him and whispered, “I just feel so loved by God right now.”

It’s important to say that I don’t think getting married is the highest sign of God’s love. Not at all. God’s love is displayed in all kinds of ways, and marriage is not some elite status of spiritual achievement.

But standing there, I looked out at all these people I love so much—people who had flown and drove in from so many different places—and felt the love of God resting on my shoulders.

Meeting

About a year and a half ago, I was set up with you through a mutual friend. (Shout out Monica!)

At the time, I was at an all-time low in my dating life. I was angry that I wasn’t married yet, angry God hadn’t provided me a wife. I was thirty-two and had been longing for “my person” since I was an eighth grader with a crush on Elizabeth Black.

I had fought to obey God and do my devotions and not sin and call my grandma and kiss babies on the forehead. I had fought to do everything necessary for God to give me the gift of a wife. But nothing.

So I sat in a chair outside a coffee shop a few blocks away from that big white church waiting for you to arrive for our date. I sat there sulking, angry that nothing was working and angry that God hadn’t answered my prayers—as if all my “good deeds” could magically produce this gift, as if God works like that.

I sat there on that chair so forlorn and angry, and then I watched you walking across the street in the sunshine. You looked at me and smiled. I held the door open for you and said a whole bunch of dumb jokes. And you laughed.

Your laugh. So free, so lovely.

During the wedding weekend, people asked me when I “knew” you were someone special. I told them I knew it five minutes into that first date, when you laughed.

Marrying

I stood at the front of the sanctuary, watched the doors open, and cried. I cried and watched you walk down the aisle with your dad. I cried and held your hands before our pastor, in front of our loved ones. I cried, I cried, I cried.

We stood at the front of the sanctuary and served communion to our guests. We cried then, too.

And we laughed. We held hands and bent over laughing; it was all so surprising. This whole thing—this entire wedding—is about us?! People are here to watch us kiss and dip and dance and laugh?! Us?!

We felt so loved by God.

Meeting

At the end of that first date, you made a comment about a second date.

My heart exploded.

So I picked you up in my car a few days later and held the door open and drove us a few miles out of town to a fancy dinner. It was there, during that fancy dinner, when it dawned on me. I asked if you usually wore glasses.

Yes, you said. You said you wore contacts when you got dressed fancy. In that moment, I realized you were the woman from the coffee shop and the woman from the communion line.

And then you laughed and I did too.

Married

We live together now, you and me. You continue to laugh, and I continue to soak it in. I made you laugh last night in the kitchen, and it—that laugh—was the highlight of my day. It’s always the highlight of my days.

For years I used to tell people that a marriage is a miracle. I mean, how else do you explain two people—in a world of billions—finding each other and fitting together just so and then committing to each other for a lifetime?

Now, having lived it, I am all the more convinced of its miraculousness—a gift from God.

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Lex, I am a better person because of your tenderhearted love.

Praise God.

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