Love and Hope – A Reflection on Our Wedding

It has been about a year since I got hitched, and I’ve tried several times since then to write this post, but I haven’t really had much to say that seemed to warrant a post, that is, until now.

Yes, our wedding was amazing. It was beautiful, there were lots of tears, and it was without exception the happiest day of my life. That is not, however, what I want to talk about.

I want to explain, more largely, what my wedding means to me, and what I would like it to mean to others.

Let me start by saying that my family decided to come to the wedding. After so much arguing and hate, my parents came, and they brought with them many members of my extended family as well. It turned out quite well, and it seemed they were genuinely trying to make an effort. I am cautiously optimistic for the future of our relationship. I’ve heard it all before, and while I’m tempted to really give it another go, I will do so with a degree of caution and distance.

With that, let me transition into the real point of this post. Our wedding, mine and Taylor’s, is more than just a celebration of us and our relationship. This wedding is a symbol. It represents hope, hope that people can overcome difficult pasts and move on to brighter futures. It represents forgiveness, the strength it takes to still love despite having been wronged so many times. Our wedding was, and I hope will forever remain, a beacon of love in a world that increasingly seems preoccupied with hate. Hate cannot win; it cannot take over and corrupt the hearts of all people, and our wedding is proof of that.

When their innocence is lost, and they walk into adulthood, too many people become obsessed, consciously or unconsciously, with the things that separate us. This person is that or that person is this. Rather than embracing our common humanity and awakening the capacity for love we all share, we focus on the differences and divide ourselves along arbitrary lines. Our wedding brought together two people, yes, but it also brought together two worlds. It is nothing short of a miracle that a girl born in New York, and a boy born in Karachi two years earlier came to find each other, fall in love, and build a life together. It is a testament to the wonder of the world we live in and the incredible capacity we all share to embrace our fellow human being despite how different they may be.

I hope that all those who attended our wedding, physically and in spirit, will look upon the day as a celebration of the bright future we all can share in a world that becomes less round and more flat each day.