A wedding guest sees a ceremony; the couple carries the conversations that made it possible.

Every visible occasion rests on invisible work. Guests arrive for an hour of ceremony; the two people at the centre are carrying months of decisions about money, families, expectations and what kind of life they intend to attempt. None of that appears in the photographs, and it is the part that will actually matter afterwards.

Whenever you attend something, assume there is a version of this behind it. Ask the people at the centre what the hardest part of arranging it was, and mean the question. And when you are the one carrying it, tell someone about that half too, since nobody can see it from the seats.