It’s not often that my personal milestones go unnoticed. A few weeks ago, I was officially the last person in the world to discover Angry Birds. Yesterday, I was the first person over age 13 to be injured in a recreational kickball league for ironic adults. In 8th grade, I got very close to winning my school’s Geography Bee . Yes, that is a thing.

But two weekends ago, I had an unrealized Personal First: a wedding date. By that I mean a date to a wedding, not a date for my wedding, because when you’re single it’s considered universally creepy to have a date set for your wedding before you’re engaged, no matter how many times you listened to The Secret on audiobook (three-fourths of a time, personally).

My friends are just starting to ride the wedding wave, so I’ve only been to a handful of matrimonial affairs in my adult life. And while for 82% of my life I’ve been romantically attached, I’ve found myself either single or in an awkward new relationship stage for every wedding since I started receiving my own personal invitations.

It’s never bothered me to go to a wedding alone. Quite the contrary, in fact. I find that I’m excellent company for myself, particularly after I’ve had a whiskey ginger ale and have danced with everybody’s grandfather, nephew, great uncle, distant cousin and awkward pity invite.

This hasn’t always been a choice that people seem to understand, since invitation etiquette now dictates that a wedding invite automatically comes with a +1. In spite of the fact that the astronomical divorce rate, I was raised and remain a believer in marriage and have been honored to be invited to every wedding I’ve been asked to attend, even the ones I secretly bitched about. I’ve never brought a random date because, well, why would I want someone meaningless at something so meaningful?


Having a date was a different kind of fun. The kind of fun where you get to casually coordinate your outfits (bright blue dress for me, bright blue chucks for him), where you get to take his wedding favor because he doesn’t eat chocolate (one man’s trash is another woman’s guilty, drunken treasure), where you get to smile and nod when the groom’s aunt refers to him as your husband (you can’t correct someone who has an English accent).

There is, admittedly, a strange and intangible pressure that comes with a wedding date. I guess if you’re not someone with a list of potential wedding dates, it’s like the cousin of meeting the parents, a litmus pop quiz for your relationship. There are certain moments that seem to carry more meaning than they may, moments of fielding questions from strangers about your relationship as they gaze at the monstrous piece of costume jewelry on your ring finger, moments when you’re glad to have someone next to you during the champagne toast, and moments where you suddenly and awkwardly find yourselves dancing alongside small children and elderly people to Kings of Leon’s "Sex on Fire."

by Nora McInerny