the front side of today

I was supposed to have played a wedding today, but it was moved to another state at the last minute, and I declined to make the trip. So I was able to attend the first of a series of 4 July weddings to which we have been invited. This was a former student of mine marrying the daughter of our admin. assistant. They've been dating for about 5 years, I think. They were dating when he came to my class as a freshman.
After the recessional, and while we were still seated, they showed three sets of slides, old pictures of both, from baby to bride, and then a set of them together over the past 5 years.
Once the slides had become current, I had a humorous thought of the scene in Spaceballs where Dark Helmet uses the video of the movie to find out where Lone Starr, Barf, and Princess Vespa are at that very moment. He simply fast forwards from the beginning of the movie until he reaches the present moment and is surprised to see himself sitting there looking at the video of himself looking at the video. I think that is a funny scene. And so I felt that today when watching these two newlyweds progress forward to the present.
As soon as my chuckle ended, I thought of how I would like to sit them down in my seat and show them slides of the future. I would like to show them snapshots that every married couple have in their album. I would explain that though everyone has these photos, most keep them in the back of the album underneath several more presentable pictures. Some couples don't even know that they have these photos, they've worked so hard to believe that their relationship is like what they believe everyone else's relationships are like. So most of these photos go ignored, denied, or completely forgotten until some day when you're cleaning a bookshelf and the album gets jostled and the photos scatter themselves about the floor. Photos that had rested beneath layers of others suddenly end up on the surface of the pile and have to be dealt with, ordered and cleaned up.
I would show them these photos not to discourage them, but so they wouldn't be surprised by them when they fall out of their albums. So that they'd be comfortable showing them to one another as they are taken and not hide them in the back of the album, or bury them in a shoe box. They could sit and look at them together and discuss them and fall more deeply in love so that time would sharpen the images, and clarify the colors and focus the backgrounds and grow more beautiful through the years.
Life ain't no bride's bouquet. But a bride's bouquet can bloom in all of life if it is cared for and kept in water. Proper care takes two people, and brides can participate in husbandry too. Like all plants, they like to be talked to - keeps them healthy.