She heard ‘I love you’ far more than the average human hears it in their lifetime. It was an occupational hazard, as a wedding coordinator. She sighed heavily as she set down a wooden container filled with bouncing ranunculus, layers of sweet peas, and varying heights of David Austin roses, all poking through variegated pittosporum and baby blue spiral eucalyptus. _What a waste_, she would think, turning away to clack her wedges across the hard, unforgiving floor.

Weddings tend to bring out the romance in even the hardest of hearts. Just not hers. After hundreds of weddings, she could discern quite well a couple and their relationship after a short observation. Whether they were at their very first wedding as a couple, if they’d only known each other a short while before, if it was set up by friends. Some were more obvious than others, like the ones in their honeymoon period, with the over the top attentiveness, the glassy eyes, and the fact they were always, **always**, touching each other. _Those couples are the worst, _she thought with a huff as she bent down to grab a fallen petal.

Some of the people she saw had been married for a longer time, years but not quite decades. They fell into three categories: tolerant of each other but only barely; outwardly hateful of each other in the most passive aggressive ways; and so in love but only because one of them didn’t know about the affair yet. Now, you might want to argue that there are more categories than that, there has to be! You’ve been married for 14 years and we love each other deeply, thank you very much! Yes, well, that’s very nice for you. Check the third option and receive my condolences with the fondest of regards.

That was simply par for the course, or so she would think as she put out more of the fresh flowers on the tables. She had to stop and move some of the other knick knacks around to make room for the arrangements. Today’s set up had some gold painted books no one would ever read and resin printed mushrooms, probably to allude to the extra curricular activity that today’s couple preferred. She wondered what kind of couple they would be. Would their love last a lifetime? Would it at least last the day?

You could just hear it with most couples: the cold way an ‘I love you’ comes through their lips, as if they’re not professing a deeply cultivated feeling, but a reminder to the two of them that there has to be love in this relationship or else, damnit. She paused to straighten a knife that had been laid askew by an untrained set up crew. Rolling her eyes, she went back to her cart to grab another couple arrangements.

Some couples were married longer still, with decades of time to grow tired of each other, or even more in love. They either gave up entirely on the hateful feelings, passive aggressive tendencies, and accepted the affairs and the reality of their marriage, OR–a noteworthy alternative–they were on their second or third marriage. She could not believe in any other course of action, not after all she had experienced here. 

You might be saying, but wait! YOU said weddings brought out romance in even the hardest of hearts! And I did, didn’t I? I just also intend to add that weddings also bring out the worst in people. They bring to light all the rot that’s been festering under the surface: jealousies and lies, resentments and confrontation. Everyone feels entitled to someone else’s wedding day. The mother of the groom who hates the woman stealing away her lovely baby boy; the mother of the bride using the day to make up for her own crappy wedding; the bridesmaid who wishes she was the bride; the groomsman who also wishes he was the bride; the father of the bride who makes far too much money and everyone knows it, often against their will; the father of the groom who spends too much time in the bridal suite; the grandparents who try so hard to look down their noses from a hunched position; the cousin who is older than either the bride or groom and has to let everyone know, through harried laughter, how she cannot even believe they’re getting married before her! The list goes on. She stops abruptly in the cooled venue to pluck out a wilting anemone, crushing it in her hand.

And the couple themselves? Heaven knows what will happen to them. Predictions can be made but ultimately they’re left to make whatever decisions they make in their one precious life. She paused again and plucked out another flower, a spray rose with a slimy, rotted stem. Its head had fallen over the edge of the container, resting on the top of a navy goblet. It was still beautiful, but couldn’t hold itself up in the arrangement of flowers. After a wedding was over, that's all there was the next day. An experience to never forget and just a bunch of dead roses.