“I don’t know if you saw,” I typed back to S shortly after receiving a message indicating that he had liked me on a dating app I almost never paid attention to, “but I’m chronically ill, so I’m pretty low-key about getting to know someone and am pretty much a homebody. Eternal optimist though, so I don’t want to give up on dating completely.”
“It can’t be that debilitating as to not at least form a friendship and see what happens from there,” he wrote back. “You seem to be a really nice person and share similar interests.”
About a year later, hopeful in love but frustrated by the limitations of my own body, I met with my doctor, who talked with me about my need for a wheelchair—I used it for the very first time when S said that he wanted to take me to look at engagement rings, an outing that would have been impossible without it.
On the day that S proposed, I felt what every engaged person hopes they will feel: a true gush of happiness and excitement, both of us teary with love. But in the days that followed, other feelings began to intrude, including frustration—Why couldn’t love have found me a bit sooner when I could still stand and walk freely?—and a bit of self-pity—How would I manage a wedding? How could I be a bride?
I had only ever been to all-day weddings with hundreds of guests and lots and lots of dancing, and this would be problematic. I hadn’t been able to attend any events in ages for a myriad of health-related reasons, nor could I stand up long enough to dance my way through a complete song. I wasn’t even sure if I could make it up an aisle unassisted—even a short one. Most of all, I hadn’t had time to come to terms with my new disabilities, my changed body, my changed self. I was becoming a bride at the same time I was becoming an ambulatory wheelchair user, whether I liked it or not.
But your heart tells you things in times of distress, and mine told me this: There are no rules when it comes to weddings. And a bride is simply someone who is marrying someone else. That is the sole thing required of a bride. Nothing more.
From here, I was able to get started, to let myself begin imagining our wedding day—which will take place later this year, in November. “You can only do what you can do,” people would say to me, and that was right. I could only do what I could do—and that meant that rules would have to be broken. I had expected to feel disappointed. Instead, I was surprised by how freeing it felt.
S and I wouldn’t be missing out, because it turned out that neither of us actually wanted what we’d be missing out on. I feel strongly that weddings should be unique to each couple, and I loathe details that feel too expected or cookie-cutter. We didn’t want anything that felt too big, too industry, too performative, or impersonal. And we are both fairly private people, not entirely excited about being the center of attention. We wanted to slink off together and elope—but we also wanted our families to be there with us, sharing in the happy moment when we would officially become a family ourselves. We decided that there was no reason we couldn’t do both.
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