A wedding is planned in minutes.
2:00 pm ceremony.
3:00 pm reception.
5:30 pm dinner.
8:00 pm speeches.
9:30 pm cake.
10:00 pm first dance.
In between: congratulations, conversations, walks from one place to the next, surprises, and all the small things that need their place on this day.
For months, everything is prepared, coordinated and organised. Often with incredible care.
And then the day is finally here.
Perhaps that is where a small paradox hides:
The more precisely we plan a special day, the easier it is to forget to make time to actually experience it.
That is why I would keep one thing open at every wedding.
Perhaps twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes in which nothing has to happen.
Not for the guests. Not for the next item on the schedule. Not even for photographs.
But for the two people because of whom this entire day is happening at all.
Suddenly, Everything Moves Very Fast
In the morning, the day still seems to lie ahead of you.
Then the getting ready begins. People come and go. Last questions are answered, the first guests arrive.
And suddenly you are standing at the ceremony.
Afterwards: congratulations, embraces, conversations, reception, dinner, speeches, music.
And that is exactly how it should be.
A wedding is, after all, also the rare gathering of people who mean something to you. Some have travelled far, others you see far too rarely. You want to talk, laugh, raise a glass and spend this day together.
Only, something remarkable happens along the way:
The very two people around whom everything revolves on this day spend surprisingly little time actually with each other.
Not side by side at the ceremony.
Not together at the table.
But with each other.
Without anyone wanting something from them in that moment.
Disappear.
Perhaps that is why this is one of the few pieces of advice I would actually give a couple.
Disappear at some point.
Not for long. And please do not turn it into another item on the schedule.
Not a task. Not a checklist. Not a “now we have to do our twenty minutes”.
Just go.
Perhaps after the ceremony. Perhaps before dinner. Perhaps exactly when it feels right.
Your guests will manage without you for once.
And suddenly something happens that is surprisingly rare on a wedding day:
No one expects anything from you.
You do not have to greet anyone. You do not have to know whether the schedule is holding. You do not have to wonder whether everyone is happy.
For a moment, you do not have to be hosts.
Perhaps you talk.
Perhaps you laugh.
Perhaps one of you finally says something there was no time for before.
Perhaps you say nothing at all.
And at some point, this quite incredible thought arrives:
We just got married.
The Unplanned Needs Room
Weddings today are organised on an impressive level.
Wedding planners, hotels, venues, florists, caterers and many others often work for months so that, on this one day, everything interlocks.
Good planning is indispensable.
But perhaps its true quality does not show in every minute being filled.
It shows in the fact that not every minute has to be filled.
That a conversation is allowed to run longer. That a delay does not immediately cause stress. That no path has to be covered at a running pace.
That something is allowed to happen that was never in any timeline.
The unplanned cannot be organised.
But you can leave room for it.
Perhaps that is true not only for weddings.
We have become rather good at planning special things. Travels. Birthdays. Careers. Weekends. Our lives.
We know where we have to be, when, and what comes next.
Only experience itself remarkably rarely keeps to a schedule.
Being Truly There, Once
For some weddings, couples and their guests travel across Europe. Others find their special place in Vienna, in the Weinviertel, or somewhere else in Austria.
Perhaps it is a castle. A villa in Italy. A hotel by a lake. A house by the sea.
You often search for this place for a long time. You visit it, walk through its rooms and imagine what it will be like to marry there one day.
And then you are finally there — and hardly have time to notice.
Those few minutes together are perhaps also a chance to make up for exactly that.
To stop, once.
To look at the place.
To look at the person beside you.
And to realise:
We are really here.
Sometimes, nothing more is needed.
Perhaps That Is the Real Luxury
At special weddings, we are quick to speak of luxury.
Of extraordinary destinations, architecture and design. Of flowers, dinner, attire and all the details into which so much time, taste and care have flowed.
All of that can be beautiful.
But on a wedding day, something else becomes scarce surprisingly quickly:
Time that belongs to no one.
No task.
No expectation.
No next appointment.
No reason to have to be anywhere else.
Just the two of you.
Perhaps it is twenty minutes. Perhaps only ten.
The number does not matter at all.
What matters is that it exists.
Because years from now, no one will pull out your timeline to remember this day.
Memories work differently.
They hold on to a glance. To a sentence. To a touch. To that strange calm in the middle of a day in which something is constantly happening.
And perhaps to a brief moment in which the two of you understood:
This is our wedding.
Perhaps that is exactly what luxury is.
Not packing even more into a special day.
But allowing yourselves enough time to notice it.
We just got married.
Photographed at Schloss Haggenberg in the Weinviertel, Lower Austria.
Selected Credits
Continue reading: The Hours Before — a wedding morning at Schloss Haggenberg.
