What We Want Is Twelve People And A Meal

You wrote the list honestly first and then you wrote it again.

The first version took about four minutes. It was the people you actually wanted in the room, and it came out at somewhere between twelve and twenty, and looking at it you felt something that was very close to relief.

Then you started the real one.

And the real one has your father's colleague on it, and the couple you have not seen in years who invited you to theirs, and three people whose absence would be a whole conversation at a family gathering next year, and a cousin you have never had a conversation with.

It is at ninety something now, and it goes up most weeks, and you have never once been back to look at the first list.

This is the last article on this site and it is about that first list.

And I want to be careful in a particular way here, because there is a version of this that would simply install a new rule, and rules are what this whole site has been taking off you.

I am not going to tell you that small is better.

It is not. A big loud wedding with three hundred people is a genuinely good thing, and the couples who want that are not shallow, and there is a real gladness in a full room that a small one does not have. If that is what you want, want it, and this article is not aimed at you.

What I am after is much narrower.

Some couples want something small and spend eight months building something large, and then apologize for the small parts of it, and end up with a day that belongs mostly to other people. That is a specific and avoidable sadness, and it happens because nobody ever gave them permission to want what they actually wanted.

If that is you, this is the last thing this site has to say.

Where two or three are gathered

There is a sentence about how many people are needed for God to be present, and the number in it is remarkably small.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20, King James Version)

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Two. Or three.

That is the entire threshold. It is not stated as a minimum that God will tolerate, and there is no implication anywhere in the passage that more would be better. Two or three, gathered in that name, and He is described as being in the middle of them.

And notice that no scaling is offered. He does not say that where two hundred are gathered He is more present, or more pleased, or more at work. The number is not a dial.

Which settles something you have been carrying without examining, and it is worth putting plainly.

You have been operating as though the significance of the day is partly a function of how many people witness it. Not consciously, and you would deny it if asked, and it is nonetheless in there, because every addition to that list has felt like it was making the day slightly more real.

It is not. The presence that matters is at the same strength in a room of twelve, and the vows are the same vows, and the covenant is the same covenant, and nothing about any of it is thinner because fewer people saw it.

The presence that matters is not scaled by the number of people watching, and twelve have never once been fewer witnesses than three hundred. Matthew 18:20 sets the threshold at two or three and offers no increase for more, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the midst of a small room.

Why the list grew

Here is the practical part, and it is worth seeing clearly rather than feeling guilty about.

Look at why each name after the first twenty went on.

Almost none of them went on because you wanted that person in the room. They went on to prevent something. To avoid a conversation, to discharge an obligation, to keep somebody from being hurt, to reciprocate an invitation, to stop a story being told about you next year.

That is not a guest list. That is a defensive perimeter.

And a defensive perimeter has a particular cost that nobody warns you about. Every person on it who is there to prevent a problem is a person you will have to greet, thank, and be photographed with, on the one day you will spend with the people you actually love. The perimeter does not stand quietly at the edge. It occupies the afternoon.

I want to say something honest here, because a site that only offers comfort is not much use to you. Choosing the small version has a real cost and I am not going to pretend it does not.

Some people will be hurt. Not many, and less than you fear, and it will not be who you expect. But somebody will mind, and you will know that they mind, and you will carry that for a while.

That is a genuine price. It is smaller than the price of the other thing, which is spending your own wedding managing a room full of people you invited to prevent something. But it is not nothing and you should choose it with your eyes open rather than be talked into it.

You are able to see what each name is doing on that list, and a defensive perimeter has never once stayed quietly at the edge of a day. The written word sets the threshold at two or three and never once counts upward, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with two people looking at an honest list.

Say it once, without justifying

So here is the last assignment on this site.

Tell one person the wedding you actually want, in one sentence, without justifying it.

One person. Somebody safe. Not the relative most likely to be difficult about it, because this is a first attempt and there is nothing to prove.

One sentence: we want about twenty people and a meal.

And here is the whole exercise, and it is the second half.

Do not justify it.

Do not say because of the money. Do not say because we are not really party people. Do not say we thought it would be more meaningful, and do not offer the reason before anybody has asked for one.

Because every justification is a small apology, and an apology invites a response, and a response is how the conversation becomes a negotiation. If you say we want twenty people, there is nothing for anybody to argue with. If you say we want twenty people because of the cost, you have just handed them a problem to solve for you, and somebody will offer to help, and you will be back at ninety by Christmas.

Say the sentence. Then stop talking.

The silence afterward will be about two seconds long and it will feel like four hours, and this is the entire difficulty of the assignment. Do not fill it.

You are able to say what you want without offering a reason for it, and a justification has never once been anything but a small apology. Matthew 18:20 states the number plainly and explains nothing, and the Holy Spirit is the one present in the two seconds after somebody says what they want.