How to be Single at Your Best Friend’s Wedding
Finding the Beauty in Different Paths
There’s a specific moment in everyone’s life when your mind rewinds the past years of your single life. Time stands still as you enter a new chapter of life. An unstoppable moment that is so direct that if you blink, you’ll miss it. The tape rewinds at full speed as you walk down the aisle face to face with your future.
A life where your best friend is married.
I realized all those lighthearted jokes of who will get married first manifested served with a side of jokes on you. Everything we had planned was the joke, not our laughable marriage list. Relationships have no plan. Friendships and romantic loves come around to kill the punch line. One that is never destined to stick.
Witnessing your once single lady partner in crime say her vows to another partner of equal worthiness is surreal. The clock resets and you’re standing there ready for an adventure of unforeseen futures. Your heart is full of love with a hint of fear of what’s ahead. A turn of events that sends you and your best friend on different paths. Both heading for greatness.
People say letting go is the hardest part, but it’s the work two best friends put in to build a relationship that withstands the moment their futures take opposing turns. Yet, that’s where the beauty lies in friendship. The difference. And our ability to love each other’s differences. We don’t find soulmates in our friends by wanting the same things. We find soulmates by admiring the passion in each other’s dreams.
I thought celebrating my best friend’s wedding stark single would be daunting. Going stag to a wedding seems unorthodox, but attending as the single maid of honor seemed even more ridiculous. Maybe that’s just what society trained us to believe. RSVPing to a wedding single is some humorous opportunity to solidify our singlehood feeling validated as we sit at the singles table.
There’s a sort of strength in going to a wedding single, but there’s something even more beautiful in attending your best friend’s wedding single. Without the nagging worry of how your significant other will entertain themselves as you fulfill your MOH duties, you’re free to sit there in the moments and hold old memories undisturbed.
I’ve realized the anxiety of anticipation of the day was just the inner adolescent bestie holding on to memories of single lady nights. The one where we turned our noses to couples at the bar as we held watered-down vodka cups that left stains on our Mystique Boutique tops. It’s the times when we held each other crying over men that couldn’t quite comprehend the fact that we were one in a million. Then, cursed the idea of being anything but single. Memories rang in my ears washing away the ancient ideologies of our friendship, making room for our reality.
Attending my best friend’s wedding single was the best decision (though there wasn’t another option haha…) the dating world forced me to make. Being single at her wedding wasn’t about watching our paths turn in different directions. Attending single was the pivotal moment of knowing that no matter where our lives take us, that woman up there saying I do will always be my best friend. I no longer wanted the life our younger selves had planned. I wanted the one with my married best friend.
The one where she gave me a best friend in a man who never would have come into my life if he never fell in love with my best friend. It’s their love that brought together unexpected friends on the dance floor. A wedding with a springboard of change that will bring better memories than the silly plans two best friends made in that baby blue painted room.
Experiencing the day single gave me an overview of the reality that lay ahead for our friendship. Every moment was mine to cherish. Mine to process as my best friend married the love of her life. Maybe I would have felt something similar if I attended with a date? Though I doubt it. Knowing our maid of honor titles may look slightly different if I ever decide marriage was the path I wanted to walk down. But it was also knowing that if our hands dawned different jewelry, our friendship would still sparkle just as brilliantly.
I encourage you to not shy away from attending your best friend’s wedding single. As you look around at all the moments quickly passing you by, you’ll see the most important thing. Beauty in the difference and the excitement in a future unplanned.
Discover more relationships takes here! Need some self-love boosts? Give these a read.
