By The Power Vested In Me
Or, #33. “On the first date tell him you aren’t thinking of getting married!”
It’s been a minute (again). Life—or this time, love—keeps getting in the way. But we’re back, jumping in with #33. “On the first date, tell him you aren’t thinking of getting married.” Seems like a fair enough tip. It’s sensible to wait until date three or four to drop the bomb… well, unless you’re me, because on the first date, marriage definitely comes up. Why? Read on.
October 2024.
It was a crisp fall evening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We were eating outside at some Italian place — the food was nice, far nicer than our usual haunts, which consist mostly of boxed mac and pints of Van Leeuwen. We’d just about made our way through a bottle of wine when she started acting weird. A little nervous, a little cagey, like she had something significant to say but didn’t quite know how to get it out.
My palms clammed up as she stumbled through a speech about how long we’d known each other and how much we meant to each other. I looked at her across the table, heart racing against the unknown. I half expected her to get down on one knee when I realized where this was going.
“Emily, will you…”
My breath hitched. Was this really happening? Was she popping the question?
“Marry us?”
And just like that, I was officially the officiant for my best friend’s wedding.
October 2025.
I write this after just having wrapped what can only be considered a rather relentless marathon of a wedding season: 27 Dresses for the modern age. Four bachelorettes, five weddings, three times a bridesmaid, one time an officiant, eight times a passenger at Chicago O’Hare, and three visits to Park City, Utah.
It was a summer of overwhelming love: of dancing in satin gowns and scarfing down hors d’oeuvres, of crying in black tie and laughing in matching pajamas. Of reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. Of bow ties and bottles. Of chicken or fish.
I struggle to describe these past few months exactly. To start, I’ve never been so exhausted in my entire life. I haven’t spent more than two full weeks in my apartment since July. My bank account is hanging on by a thread, strung up with the help of one full-time job and two side hustles. My body is in shambles, my brain is a puddle, and my heart has never been so full.
Out of sheer necessity, writing took a backseat these past few months. It’s hard to spin something out of nothing when your head is already spinning with flights and fittings, to-dos and too-lates. And now, sitting down for the first time in months with a blank page and a hell of a lot to say, I feel rusty. As Clair de Lune wafts through my headphones (an absolute banger for writing and otherwise) and my phone rests on Do Not Disturb, I realize how long it’s been since I’ve done this. Not just sit and think, but write and feel.
I can finally breathe again.
For months, my life hasn’t really been my own. To my newlywed friends: please know this isn’t a complaint. It’s a choice I made, and I have loved every moment. It’s an unbelievable honor to not only be invited to someone’s big day but also to be asked to play a part in it; to be wanted as a witness to someone’s (hopeful) forever. And, in my case, to be the one to legally make it so.
There’s so much to say about weddings — what they’ve taught me about love, about friendship, about myself. I want to talk about etiquette, the politics of bridesmaidhood, the pressure to be everything for everyone, and the importance of comfortable shoes and espresso martinis. I have feelings about wedding flings (if you’re single) and the meaning of bringing a plus-one (if you’re not).
While I didn’t walk down the aisle in a white dress, I did learn something every time I stepped down the flower-laden path. Thus, though I am not yet married, I have thoughts on marriage. Probably unsurprising coming from the girl working her way through a list called 129 Ways to Get a Husband.
I think I’ll start with officiating.
May 2025.
Right before wedding-palooza officially began, and months after I’d been asked to officiate… it was time to start preparing. The wedding was in late August, so a four-month lead time seemed reasonable.
Because I am me, I didn’t take the role lightly. First order of business: getting ordained. I had to become a minister to marry my best friends. Me, a proud Reform Jew, suddenly turning into a card-carrying member of the church?
I assumed the process would be rigorous — that I’d need a 40-hour course on, well, something. Maybe lessons on the sanctity of marriage, or a test on compatibility and faith. I figured there’d at least be a fee. Whatever the requirements, I was ready to undertake them.
Turns out it’s more work to get a bowhunting license than it is to get the power to marry.
Getting ordained took all of five minutes through a website called the Universal Life Church. I entered my information, clicked a few boxes, and boom! Ordained. The site asked if I wanted to purchase proof of ordination, but my friends assured me that it was a scam.
Still, I didn’t quite believe it. So I went to a different website. No harm in being double-ordained, right? Five minutes later, the American Marriage Ministries had also welcomed me into its holy ranks. With that, I saved my confirmation emails and turned my focus back to bridesmaid dress shopping (a saga that involved tears at three tailors and a last-minute apology to a saintly seamstress, but that’s a story for another Substack).
While being a newly minted member of the clergy was funny in theory, in reality, it threw me for a loop. Religion has been on my mind a lot this year. What it means to a person, how we practice, and the ways it continues to shape even the most secular of rituals. It’s something I didn’t think too much about until this summer; then all at once, the question was everywhere.
Every wedding is its own experiment in belief. Some are deeply religious, others completely agnostic. As I began building a ceremony for Mel and Donny (the bride and groom), I realized that a modern, nonreligious wedding is basically a choose-your-own-adventure game.
For most of my life, I thought marriage and religion were inseparable: the white dress, the three-tier cake, the chuppah, the chapel. Even in the movies, no matter the plot — My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Father of the Bride, Fiddler on the Roof, The Wedding Planner — love and God always seem to share top billing.
But here’s the thing: marriage actually predates religion. The first recorded weddings took place in ancient Mesopotamia over 4,000 years ago. At that time, these unions were treated as contracts, often to secure alliances, property, inheritance, and social stability. In the early days, the emphasis was on security and control. Security for the financial and literal longevity of a lineage, and control for the man to legally exert over the woman.
Of course, one could argue Adam and Eve were the first married couple, but that’s a theological rabbit hole I’m not diving into. The point is that marriage is very old, and until recently (relative to the timeline of humanity), it was a practice of pragmatism and power.
By the 19th century, as women gained independence, marriage started shifting from logic to love. The post-war economic boom of the 1950s helped cement weddings as a status symbol. And in the late 20th and 21st centuries, more and more weddings broke tradition, whether by secularity, size, or style.
Marriage began as a contract, not a sacrament. Yet somewhere between property agreements and Pinterest boards, it evolved from transaction to declaration.
So these days, why do people want to get married?
For some, it’s religion. For others, it’s the thing to do; for a few, it’s to get their grandmother to stop nagging. It’s for health insurance, or a green card, or because you got too drunk in Vegas and won a plastic ring in a game of craps. It’s companionship, a better mortgage rate, a family, a KitchenAid. It’s to not be alone.
As I spent the summer celebrating someone else’s love story over and over, I started asking myself the same question. Why do I want to get married?
For me, a wedding is not about the food, the venue, or the music. Those are important, but they’re not the point. I went to some outrageously incredible weddings this summer, but what stuck had nothing to do with the cost or the glam. At each celebration, it was clear that had the couple done the same thing at a courthouse in Brooklyn and celebrated with pizza in the park, it would have been just as powerful. Time and time again, what stood out was how people showed up for their people and the emotion in each room.
Why do I want to get married? To stand before my closest family and friends and declare my love. To make a promise. To find a partner.
And, to get a KitchenAid.
August 2025.
After months of agonizing over the meaning of love and the proper structure for the ceremony, I was ready to officiate. Speech finished, dress tailored, bags packed.
Only one thing was missing: government approval to solemnize a marriage in Massachusetts. Womp womp.
I was an hour from leaving for the Cape when I learned my original suspicion about getting ordained too easily was correct. In most states, the online ordination is all you need. Massachusetts, however, has its own set of officiant rules — cue a full-on panic. All this time stressing about getting my words right, I never once considered I could get the actual marrying part wrong.
Within minutes of my horrifying realization, I was on a first-name basis with an online minister from the Universal Life Church who convinced me to overnight the clergy party pack, which not only included my necessary proof of ordination but also a parking pass, a press pass, a bumper sticker, and a personal lanyard. I regret nothing about this purchase.
Soon after, I was on the phone discussing logistics with Elizabeth in the MA Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Then Sue and Liney from Sandwich Town Hall, and finally Cheryl, my ride-or-die Falmouth town clerk. These were my Avengers, and boy did they assemble.
You know what they say: It’s not about who you marry, it’s the clerks you meet along the way.
Twenty-four hours later, the necessary forms arrived in Sandwich, MA. And the wedding? Perfect. The ceremony sang (as did the bride and groom). We drunkenly and incorrectly signed the marriage license at midnight (Whoops! This later warranted a phone call from Cheryl in the Falmouth Town Hall).
But before I could even digest the experience, it was time for another wedding, another bridesmaid. Yet somewhere between New York and Northern Michigan, or maybe it was Lake Geneva and Park City, I found time for reflection. The consensus? I am lucky to live through this. Wedding season meant 6 am flights, too much wine, swollen feet, crying in the bathroom, crying down the aisle, crying at the table, crying on the dance floor. It was every emotion all at once, and it was worth it.
October 2025.
I’m on break now. Well, one bachelorette to go in Miami, and then break: at least six months before Season 2 kicks off.
As I lie in bed writing (horizontal mode for the foreseeable future) and slowly begin to reconnect with myself, I feel bone tired, but so grateful. This era won’t last forever, so I want to try to appreciate every moment while it lasts.
That said, I leave you all with this.
The next time someone asks me to marry them, I sure as hell hope it’s for our wedding.
:’) me reading this
This was lovely and cannot wait for the seamstress saga focused substack! Also, around the holidays (Black Friday if that’s still a thing) KitchenAid has amazing sales. That’s how I snagged mine. I couldn’t wait to have a reason for a registry lol. Too old for that!