This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
I speed my MX-5 through the grounds of the Victorian era estate house, hidden in the Irish countryside. My best man and I jump out and retrieve our tuxedos (mine a midnight blue, velvet Scabal cloth, made for me in London) from the boot and make our way through the house to the dressing room to meet the other groomsmen. En route, I am greeted by a collection of family and friends who shower me with hugs and the kind of deference usually reserved for Royalty.
Now, this sounds like the kind of overly stylish, brand-name dropping opening to a chapter from an Ian Fleming novel: and that’s because it’s exactly how the whole wedding felt. Opulent in the kind of fun and unnecessary way that all opulence is. So, when I realised that I had left my hand-stitched Spanish patent leather shoes at home and faced the all too real prospect of meeting my bride at the end of the aisle with nothing but socks on my feet, I was already laughing about it. Happily, a friend came to the rescue and that never came to be – however, the laughter did. And as I turned to face my bride as she walked up the aisle I could see that she was laughing too – I don’t think either of us could figure out how to take ourselves seriously in that moment. We both knew this was a far too expensive and sickeningly decedent entry into an outdated institution. So, why did we and so many others do it anyway?
For once, “love” probably isn’t the answer – it should be, yet many people in love don’t get married and many people who aren’t in love, do. Conformity could be the reason. But I have always considered nonconformity worth it for its own sake. It could be the tax benefits, although I don’t know what those are exactly. Perhaps it was “because she wanted to”? But I don’t think love panders to those in it. And besides, contrary to my youthful protestations, I wanted to as well. But it is hard to find a good reason to explain why people do it. So I ask, dear reader, that you indulge me and let me answer the smaller question in the title of this article, which I ask that you now re-read with an emphasis on the word ‘I’.
This, because I can only speak for myself. I got here because late one evening, over a year ago, my now wife had gone to bed and, without any previous thought of marriage, I started browsing engagement rings. It was a task performed completely by my subconscious which later made its way to conscious action. You see, I (and I suspect many may recognise themselves in this analysis) have no idea who I am or why I do what I do, I just do and then rationalise later. So when I do something as I have done like saying “I do”, something which defies all financial, social and logical rationalisation, it’s because I am an irrational human animal that followed its nose, and I am pleased to find where it brought me.
So where is “here”? Well, that condition is equally hard to define: all I can recommend is that you go and spend 72 hours with 170 people you love and who love you and do nothing but tell those people you love them, and listen to how much you are loved and I defy you not to come away a softer and richer man for it. That’s where “here” is.
And so, in answering the question “How did I get here?”, turns out I was wrong earlier – love actually IS the answer!
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