the antithesis of formal wear

At the wedding, standing at the altar beside the bride and groom, a roundish man with a thick white mustache chomps away at a wad of bubblegum.  He’s standing in that intimate space, filming the ceremony.  He’s dressed in the antithesis of formal wear–a dull green button-down shirt, blue jeans, and thick black sneakers.  There is no ring on his finger. He chews silently.

I sit in the front row, alternately watching the young couple exchange their vows, and this man, enthusiastically chewing.  I wonder about what this guy thinks of weddings–the ceremony, the glitz, the organized, unspontaneous ritual of it all.  I wonder if he’s been married before, but not anymore, and he films these weddings to capture the moments that maybe time has faded from his memory along with the groove at the base of his ring finger.  Or maybe it ended badly, or maybe he never married at all.  Either way, I find myself wondering how he sees these ceremonies–and the vast procession of them that has played out in front of his lens.  Is it with the eye of a romantic, hoping for the vitality of the young marriage?  Or is it with the eye of a cynic, watching the action unfold with the temporary interest of a spectator, enjoying the moment all the more because it is fleeting, inconcrete, that this, like all other spectacles, will end in disappointment for someone.