My Third Cousin’s Wedding

The halls of the dimly lit hotel were dangerous territory for my older sister and I. The turn of any given corner brought with it the threat of another agonizing, awkward run-in with an aunt, uncle, or cousin. Every interaction was an opportunity to break the ice of the past 15-or-so years of little-to-no contact, only to leave us shriveled up, shuffling back to the sanctity of our room, where our mother simultaneously hid from her cousins and in-laws. 

Deepu was the first of us to get married. The best man’s speech described him and his fiancée as a “celebrity power-couple.” As his third cousin, I saw him the same way – he was a distant, dashing celebrity; the eldest starboy of our clan. I’d only met him for the first time in 2014 at a Thanksgiving dinner and then in 2019 when we met Austen, his wife-to-be. And now, in 2024, he was the groom that brought us all to Amelia Island, Florida, to celebrate his union. The more I learned about him through colorful speeches and anecdotes, the more I thought: Wow, Deepu sounds pretty cool. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken a word to Deepu in my life.” My sister and I lamented as we gorged on greasy room service pizza.

“Mom, why is everyone on your side of the family so weird? They’re all so hard to talk to,” I whined, exasperated. 

“They probably feel awkward too. No one knows what to say. Too much has happened and too much time has passed,” reasoned my sister. 

“I never know with these people, they’ve always been very strange. They’ve never liked me,” my mother chimed in, resigned and scanning the wedding itinerary. 

“Tomorrow is the Western wedding, right?” 

“This pizza’s going to make me so bloated,” my sister groaned.

We ran into the happy couple while waiting for our green detox smoothies the next morning. We chirped: 

“Hey! Good morning!”

“It’s been so long!” 

“Thank you for coming! So good to see you!”

“It must’ve been, what…five years since we last saw each other?”

“Yeah, no, it’s been a while! You look so good!” 

And then the lull. That stiff silence that permeates every interaction I have with my cousins swiftly filled the space between us. I glanced around the café to occupy myself. 

“...yeah, we’re all planning to go to the pool later if you’re around?” Deepu offered.

Where else would we be, I thought bitterly.

“Oh, awesome! I think we’re gonna walk around the beach for a bit and then join later,” replied my sister. 

“Cool, see you!”

“See you!” we replied in cheery unison, before exchanging an anxious glance when the couple turned their backs.

It was 80 degrees and I was wearing a long-sleeve shirt, black leggings, and Doc Martens. My sister and my mom were in sneakers, jeans, and t-shirts. Three sore thumbs waddling along the beach.

The first of many torturous conversations of the day was over, but now there was the problem of the pool. Were we just going to sit there watching them swim? Who would be there? Was that woman going to be there too?

“If we don’t go, we’ll look rude - and stick out more than we already do.”

“We will literally be miserable if we go to the pool.” 

“We have to go. Let’s just go for an hour,” my sister compromised. 

My mother was indifferent and didn’t engage in our squabbling.

The sand was white, soft, and forced us to walk slowly. There weren’t many people out. We gazed at the murky water and the distant resort buildings, our eyes squinting in the sun. We slurped down our smoothies and, on our way to the pool, found a large turtle on the artificial resort turf. 

“Is it…supposed to be here?” I wondered. It was an uncanny sight.

“Maybe it got lost,” said my mother. 

“Hmm.” I took a photo and moved on.

We found ourselves at the poolside. That woman was there, the one we were the most weary of seeing. She drank too much, lingered with the kids instead of the adults and shriek-laughed with her characteristic shrillness. Something was different, though. The magnetism that used to bother my mother so much, that somehow drew everyone into her jokes and stories about wild nights and travels, had faded. There was something lame and sad about her in this moment. It felt unfair to think, but it was true. It was our first time seeing her since her husband’s funeral, the funeral for my mother’s estranged sibling. A lot had happened, indeed. 

The three of us got dolled up in our Western outfits for our first American wedding. I was struck by how similar it felt to the beachside weddings I saw in movies. Tears were in my eyes before anything had even happened. 

A yellow lab brought the rings out and two young flower girls sprinkled petals along the aisle. The red-faced, blubbering father of the bride showered the new couple with his hopes and blessings. By the end of all this, I was a puddle that believed in the power of love and the promise of marriage. I wrote notes for my friends’ future wedding speeches between sniffles. 

At dinner, all of the cousins were placed at the same table except my sister and me. We got to our table and found that they’d staggered our names with strangers. We quickly switched them around in a panic so that we were sitting next to each other. Guilt crept in when we’d later had to make small talk with the young married couple we’d split up in our crime. I found them quite cool and aspirational. 

“They seem just like us, but they’re married.” 

My sister agreed, although she frowned upon the growing number of brown-girl, white-boy unions. “We need to close ranks,” she muttered. 

The fireworks left towering plumes of smoke in the sky. We were instructed to enjoy the open bar and the dance floor from 8 to 10 pm. My sister and I acquired our drinks and watched Austen’s older relatives gyrate to Elvis and Prince.

“I love white people at weddings,” my sister mused.

We zoned in on one couple dancing together.

“I hope I’m as cool as them when I’m older.” I admired and envied their carefree spirit. 

All of the Indians and guests below the age of 50 steered clear of the dance floor until my sister and I were several drinks in. We were the first youths to surrender to the sound. Our eyes searched for our cousins. This was our chance. We were drunk, our inhibitions were released, we were clearly the coolest young people here. My sister caught their gaze first.

“Oh god, they’re looking at us.”

“I will not look over there. I’m not going to look.”

“They’re actually all so lame. Why are they just sitting there.” 

“I hate them.”

Moments later, they joined us, at my sister’s behest. Then it was a real party. 

We danced and drank and shouted and sang. I spoke in front of my cousins more than I have in my entire life. It was likely their first time finding out that I do indeed have a personality of my own. My first-ever conversation with Deepu was delightful. He talked about how he wants to move to New York City one day.

“Guys…listen,” I slurred. “You guys should all move to New York, and then we can all hang out allll the time.” My heart warmed at the thought of us all in one place. I wished we could skip over all the strained conversation and fast forward to a future where we’re as close as cousins are supposed to be.

At long last, progress was made. We’d taken such boundless and fruitful strides. All this squandered time, and the answer all along was that we’d just needed to drink with them! My sister and I rejoiced, delighted by how wonderful and miraculous alcohol can be. 

The sober Hindu ceremony the next morning brought with it an equally sobering reality: bottomless spritzes and drunken declarations can neither make up for lost time nor mend decade-long discomfort. My sister and I groaned with the Aperol-induced hangover and the knowledge that more misery would be in store. 

We made our way to the lobby in our heavy, sparkly Indian fare and our compulsory high heels. One of the hotel staff looked at us, hesitated a moment, then said: “God, white weddings are so boring. You all look gorgeous.” We shimmered under her praise and click-clacked happily to the wedding hall. We passed a man wearing a MAGA hat who paid us the same compliment. This time, we were less shimmery. 

The conversations at breakfast went back to their strained and hopeless manner as if last night meant nothing. We were called up to the stage where the ceremony was being held. Hindu marriage rites were being chanted by a priest and grains of rice were thrown at the couple as the wedding-goers watched in rows. No one told us about our involvement in advance and my sister’s shoes took an uncomfortably long time to unlace. 

“Both of you hold the plate of spices, circle it around them four times, then put a spot of turmeric on their foreheads.” I was bent, awkward, and weakly circling the plate around the couple, sneaking nervous glances at the rows of onlookers. The couple gave us twenty dollar bills for our service. I was puzzled but pleased by the ritual, excited to use the cash to buy chicken over rice at halal carts. They took the cash back from us.

The rest of the day was ours. We volleyed back and forth on whether we should hang out with the cousins, go for a walk on the beach, order room service, or go to one of the hotel restaurants. Every option seemed to bring up new problems, new agonies. If we left our room, there was a chance we’d run into someone. If we didn’t leave our room, we’d seem like the recluses we were. If they invited us and we went, we’d be miserable and our mother would be alone. If they didn’t invite us, we’d be relieved, and then agonize over why we weren’t invited. Nothing was easy.

We found a roach in our room on our last night. 

“Isn’t this supposed to be a five star hotel?! Why are there roaches here?!?” We were horrified and exhausted by the looming threat of relatives, and now roaches, lurking around every corner. 

When the wedding was finally over, we were able to breathe again. While waiting at the gate, I followed my newly married cousin on Instagram – he had seemed pretty cool, after all. A few days later, I found that he’d accepted my follow request, but didn’t follow me back. 

I considered the possibility that he genuinely didn’t know my name, which would’ve been plausible and not entirely unforgivable. Then I realized we had mutuals - two of my other cousins followed me, which he definitely would’ve seen. Anger swelled inside me and I immediately unfollowed him. “I didn’t even wanna go to your stupid wedding anyway,” I grumbled. 

The alcohol-induced visions of all of us cousins having family dinner parties with our nieces and nephews in New York dissipated as quickly as they had surfaced. Those naïve hopes sunk further into the ground with each photo that my sister and I were cropped out of on Instagram. The distance from the occasion clarified things: I never needed or cared about my cousins before the wedding - why should that change now? What’s the need to turn over a new leaf? 

I’m not sure where the wedding whirlwind left my sister. I hope she doesn’t continue to grasp for remnants of the closeness and comfort she once felt with them. I’ll be by her side when she does, though. She’ll cling on to what she used to have, while I'll be just as resigned as my mother, satisfied knowing there was never a foundation to begin with. I’d had a momentary lapse of judgment but now I knew for sure - it would be my sister and I until the end.