my party.

A Saturday night, spent out beyond the reach of all cell phone towers on top of a mountain and down a gravel road while dance music played loudly and a girl in jeans and a do-rag twirled balls of fire on opposite ends of a long rope.

Did I mention that I was at a wedding?

Did I also mention that the girl twirling fire was the bride?

I've been to a lot of weddings, but none like this. I've even been to outdoor weddings in the middle of nowhere, though technically, I didn't go to this one. Josh and I arrived after the ceremony, just as the cake was being cut and the wedding party was finishing up their toasts. Either our arrival was the signal for the fun stuff to begin or we're just lucky like that. No, scratch that: Josh is just lucky like that. Me, I always arrive embarrassingly early or on-time. If I try to show up fashionably late, I'm still earlier than everyone else or I'm too late and all the cool people have already left.

Once we got there, we spent the bulk of the evening away from the regular reception with a bunch of other kids our age, sitting in the grass, drinking, and goofing off. The bride would frequently sneak off to join us, her dress bunched up in her arms to keep it clean, revealing her painted Chuck Taylors. She'd hang out, smoke a cigarette, then sigh and say she had to go back and be social or dance or whatever it is that you're supposed to do on your special day. We were the real party, the group of twenty-somethings messing up their dress clothes by sitting in the grass and talking about whatever.

It got dark and Josh and I walked back to the official festivities to say good-bye. When we got back, we noticed the fire-dancing. I was dumbstruck. I wondered if I could think of any girls who would even change out of their wedding dresses at their reception. I came up with no suspects. Twirling fire was definitely out of the question. Everyone was clapping in time to the music, dancing, having a good time. It was at that point that I realized: People could have fun at a wedding.

I suppose I've had fun at a wedding. But it was dress nicely, free food and drink, socialize quietly kind of fun. It was not drinking, partying, fire-twirling kind of fun. A wedding day is supposed to be the most important in the life of the bride, but brides never seem to enjoy the day all that much. They're stressed out from planning and dealing with family. They enjoy it in that they realize they're doing something grownup and significant, but they spend all their time being the focus and mingling, hello, thanks for coming, yes, I look lovely. They don't get to do what they want.

Someday, I want to get married. I want to look beautiful and be surrounded by everyone I love and eat chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. Then I want to be able to realize that it's my party, and I can twirl fire if I want to.