Beautiful Day

OUTTAKES

The New York Times

Carmichael-Graham

Jennifer Bailey Carmichael, daughter of Douglas Carmichael of Silvermine, CT, and the late Elizabeth Bailey Carmichael, married Stuart James Graham, son of James and Ann Graham of Durham, NC, yesterday on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. The Reverend Harvey Marlowe officiated at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Ms. Carmichael, 29, is the lead teacher at Little Minds Preschool in Manhattan. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary.

The bride’s father is the managing partner at Garrett, Parker, and Spence, a family law practice in Manhattan.

The groom, 30, is a food and beverage analyst for Morgan Stanley. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He received an M.B.A. from Columbia.

The groom’s father is a vice president at GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the groom’s mother has served as a state senator in North Carolina for twenty-four years.

Ryan Graham (best man): Wow, the wedding announcement states all the facts, but it actually tells you nothing.

Nick Carmichael (brother of the bride): Normally, I break hearts like it’s my cool second job. But this weekend, I had a girl swiped right out from under me, which has never happened before. It took a minute for me to realize that she hadn’t belonged to me in the first place. It felt like she belonged to me because I have known her for so long-longer than Scott Walker, by the way-but only by a couple of decades. Finn had always been Jenna’s little friend, but then, this weekend, she became someone else. Had I fallen in love with her? Man, I don’t know if I would go that far, though I felt something crazy and unfamiliar. But then I’ve heard weddings can do that. They can bring out the romantic in anyone.

H. W. Graham (brother of the groom): Her flight was at three o’clock and mine was at quarter to four so we decided to go to the airport together. We had gotten a pretty good glow on at the brunch, and since we had time at the airport, we sat at the bar and did a couple of tequila shots. She had been saying the whole weekend that she knew guys like me and that I didn’t have to worry, there were no strings attached. Once she got on her plane for Myrtle Beach, I would never see or hear from her again. So it took a little convincing for me to get her number. We can text, I said. I’ll hit you on Facebook, stuff like that. Plus, I go to Pawleys all the time to golf (this wasn’t strictly true, though I had been there once), so I can come see you. I can come to your restaurant. She said, It’s a free country. Then her plane was called and I kissed her good-bye and I watched her copper hair disappear through the gate at security, and I’m embarrassed to admit what I did next. I got on my computer and MapQuested the distance between Raleigh and Murrells Inlet. One hundred and eighty-seven miles, three hours and thirty-four minutes. Piece of cake. I’m going next weekend.

Carson Bain (nephew of the bride): My mother says that as soon as we get back to New York I have to start seeing a tutor three times a week!

Douglas Carmichael (father of the bride): By my calculations, the wedding cost me between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. If Beth were alive, she would kill me for telling you that. She would also insist that I add that it was worth every penny. Which it was.

Roger (wedding planner): We all know what Tolstoy wrote about happy families being alike but unhappy families being unhappy in their own fashion. I am not Russian and I am not a novelist, and a hundred and fifty years from now, no one will be quoting me-but that’s not going to keep me from saying what I think. What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional. The Carmichaels and the Grahams weren’t my easiest clients, nor were they my most difficult-not by a long shot. But they stood out. The first time Jenna and Margot came into my office and told me that they had lost their mother but she had left a Notebook behind, I thought, Now this is going to be interesting. And it was.

The thing Beth Carmichael wanted for her daughter more than anything was a beautiful day. I have to say, I have worked on over a hundred and seventy-five weddings-some in the driving rain and wind, some in a fug of unbearable heat and humidity, one in a blizzard (in April!)-and they have all, every single one of them, been beautiful days.

But especially this one.

Jenna Carmichael Graham (newlywed): Weddings are a big deal. You might think I would have realized this before yesterday, but I didn’t. It was only as I stood on the altar of the church with Stuart and my family and Stuart’s brothers and my best friends and Reverend Marlowe, and I looked out at all the faces of the people I loved who loved me back and wished the best for me, that I understood. Love is scary! Taking a vow to love someone through sickness and health, for richer for poorer, forsaking all others, until death do us part, is the most terrifying experience a person can have. Why pretend any differently?