I was in my dear friend's wedding recently and I'm still not sure how to explain how important it was to me

Two weeks ago today, I stepped up to an altar in an abbey in Ireland and and presented a gold ring to a priest, who dripped holy water on it. I then turned and handed it to Molly. Her dress was a pearl ivory with a nearly imperceptible champagne tint. I remember a flash of green and white and oaky brown — she had laid her calla lilies across the railing that stood between us and the priest, and I peeked around my dear friend to watch her put the ring on Tom's finger. I remember thinking about how easy it felt to smile about this moment. Feeling joy about my joy, I smiled even bigger.

There are so many things I want to share about this wedding, but a problem I have with writing about things that matter to me is I can only write about them in the moment or many, many moons later — unless some sort of pressure is applied or I'm just texting someone. If I'm texting someone I can suddenly recall exactly what I need and I have the gift of relative (relative) brevity. 

If I were texting you, what I'd say is something like this: 

This was just an incredibly beautiful experience. I got to witness one of my best friends in the whole wide world make this stunning promise to someone wonderful. I got to sit in a salon while peat moss burned in the fireplace during an Irish trad session where Tom was playing guitar and lean my head on Molly's shoulder and be overwhelmed at the beauty of such a casually poetic culture. Never again will I travel internationally for less than a week — and this experience confirmed for me every hypothesis I had formed in recent months about what it is that I'm good at/what I'm sort of designed to do.

There's so much to say, so I'm going to break it up into pieces; there's so much I don't want to forget. It'll read like a journal entry, because that's basically what it is.

Oh, also: That is not a picture of Molly and Tom. Just so you know.