They were the most difficult 21 steps I have ever had to take. Let me elaborate: the most difficult, the most poignant and the most blissful 21 steps I have ever taken and probably will ever have to take for the rest of my life.
I stood there in the dark with my father at my right, shifting his weight back and forth from good knee to bad as I fumbled with S.’s laptop -- I was trying to make the song play, and suddenly my fingers were shaking. I gave my pale hands a dirty look, silently cursed them for showing the first signs of anxiety that I had exhibited all day and continued to struggle with the computer’s mouse pad…which was wonky at the best of times.

That I knew everyone had been asked to stand for the bride at least two minutes prior and S. was in all probability starting to think I had dashed didn’t help the tension that had suddenly gripped my insides and started my ankles a-shaking. When I finally got the song started I couldn’t hear it well and worried that I had turned the volume down too low. Then my feet began to move as though of their own volition and it was all over. No more worrying. No more stress. No more wondering who was there and who wasn’t. I threaded my right arm through my fathers left and whispered “let’s go”, looking up at his shining eyes. This was it. We took the first of those notorious 21 steps.

We got through the first three or four without calamity and then the room began take on a slightly muddled look as the tears began to well up in my eyes. Why was I crying? I looked at the end of the (what now seemed extremely long) aisle and saw S. standing there, looking pleased and expectant and I tried to bring the tears to a halt. I even stopped walking for an instant and looked at the floor in an attempt to calm myself and then continued on. I was shaking uncontrollably by now and laughing and crying –- I laugh, I mean I giggle slightly uncontrollably when I’m really nervous – and couldn’t seem to stop. The tears were doing nothing to help the nervousness my feeble brain had suddenly decided was going to occur, no matter how calm, cool and collected I had been up until the guests were seated.

We continued to walk and suddenly we were there. S. was walking towards my father and shaking his hand (as I watched, seemingly from somewhere other than my own body); I told my dad to sit and S. took my arm and walked me to the front of the room. Our officiant, Jeremy was waiting for us there and both S. and him were smiling at me with looks on their faces that plainly showed their hope that I wasn’t going to either faint or bolt at any second. The first few minutes of the ceremony passed amid my snorts, giggles and tears and finally when our friend Anne came up to do her reading I managed to pull it together. “I dos” were said, vows were pledged and we were told we were allowed to call ourselves by those time-honored terms: husband and wife.

I felt just like the heart-shaped dried cranberry shortbread cookies that were on the dessert table just a few feet away: all crumbly, sugary-light and happy inside.