“Friends of friends are all friends”

This is one of the enduring bits of wisdom my friend Wyman has taught me. And sure enough, at the friends’ night the evening before his wedding, we were, indeed, all friends.

This has been the case at the weddings and bachelor parties I’ve been to over the years. I get along swimmingly, without fail, with the friends of my closest friends. And the most fun I’ve had at weddings are usually preluded by an energizing, seemingly providential, friends night. This has been a pattern, not a coincidence.

I think the underlying cause of this is stories, and how we want to be part of stories that matter.

Weddings are great examples of stories that matter. Robyn and I still talk often about stories from our own wedding.

Like the bobbing poster sized cutouts of our heads that our friends Nick and Liz found and the heat it brought to an already sizzling dance floor. We remember the quick stop we had at Atwater brewery for post-ceremony photos, that our entire family showed up at, and the pints of Whango we had to chug on our way to our wedding reception. And I’ve learned to laugh about how my very best friends let me get locked in the church after our wedding rehearsal.

But just as often, we reminisce over the stories of other weddings we’ve attended, where we were just part of the supporting cast, rather than the protagonists.

We remember how we scurried across Northern California to attend a Bay Area and Tahoe wedding in the same weekend. We remember the picnic in a Greenville park and how we climbed a literal mountain for the marriage of Robyn’s closest childhood friend. We relive trips to places like Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Milwaukee and the adventures we’ve had with old friends we reconnected with at destinations across the country.

Weddings are more than just significant, however. They are also collective stories, where the narrative is made from the interwoven threads of an ensemble cast, rather than a single strand dominated by the actions of one person. The bride and groom may be the protagonists, but for a wedding the rest of the ensemble and the setting is just as important. That everyone can be part of the story is exactly the point.

All the best stories, I think, are collective, ensemble tales. The story of a wedding. The novel East of Eden. The story of my family. The story of America. The stories of scripture. The story of a championship athletic teams. The stories of social movements to expand rights and freedoms all across the world. The story of Marvel’s Avengers. The story of great American cities like Detroit, New York, and Chicago. The story of a marriage. The story of our marriage.

These stories are all made up of interwoven threads and an ensemble cast, and that’s what make them transcendent. Collective stories have archetypes and themes that everyone understands, and that’s what makes them powerful and magnetic.

I think the deep yearning to become part of a meaningful, transcendent, collective story is why friends of friends become friends at weddings. The yearning opens our hearts and minds to new experiences and brings out the truest and purest versions of ourselves.

But more broadly than that, collective stories also explain why we see people making seemingly irrational and painful sacrifices for something larger than themselves. The desire to be part of a collective story drives people to do everything from serve their country, commit to a faith, travel thousands of miles to be home for the holidays, or take on a cause that others think is lost.

Being part of a collective story is a very special type of human experience that brings a deep, grounded, and peace-giving joy. Giving someone the chance to be a part of a story like that is one of the greatest gifts that can be given.