There was a tender moment when the bride started to tear up and the groom pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. The groom’s mother turned around and whispered, “The hankie is Eloise’s.”

I whispered the same to my daughter and she whispered to her sister and she whispered to the next sister. And on it went through the rows of relatives sitting on the groom’s side of the church.

Eloise was the groom’s late grandmother. Many of us had to be thinking how much Eloise would have loved being there. And then her hankie appeared. And then we all needed hankies.

Actually, mine had been in use since the violinist lead off with “Ave Maria.” “There goes Mom” said a daughter, who I might add, didn’t take long to wreck her own mascara.

I guess people cry at weddings because even though each couple’s ceremony is different, according to style and form and sweet surprises like a hankie passing, their pledge to love each other forever is a personal reminder to everyone in the room who ever said the same thing or thought about it.

You think about the sweetness of young love and the challenge of lasting love and then you look up at the couple grinning at each other and down the aisles at your own family with the littlest baby, and there’s all that wonderful continuation. And then you think that it’s a good thing that weddings are often performed in a house of worship because marriage is so much about faith transcending experience.

As Wendell Berry said, “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.”

I could only imagine what scenes from a marriage played in the heads of others in the church. I know that a few on our side could personally attest that not all marriages are made in heaven. People disappoint. Couples divorce. Parents go their separate ways and kids grow up in two houses.

And, hadn’t our group just the night before sat over margaritas and enchiladas and analyzed the Tipper-Al break-up? Who wanted out? Was it losing the election? Was it Al becoming a global warming god? What about the famous big fat kiss?

Other people’s marriages matter, even the celebrity ones we watch from the sidelines. When strong, reliable ones fail, like the Gores’, we all feel a little threatened. And yet, marriage is one of the few institutions we still believe in.

The minister made a point that these two smart, shining people had been friends for a long time before falling in love. The bride’s brother read a piece called “I Like You” which is actually a child’s poem about friendship. It doesn’t mention love and romance. It talks about two people amazed at how much they make each other laugh and how they trust each other. One part says, “And if we are in Grand Central Station and if I get lost then you are the one who is yelling for me.”

It was a fine event, the ritual honored with some creative deviations. Instead of wedding cake there was crème brulee. The bride’s attendants got to blessedly wear their own non-matching dresses. The bride nixed the garter toss.

The couple had two days of stardom and blessings and silly and sentimental toasts. Their adoring fans got to put on the rare suit and high heels and party into the night, even the old married ones boogieing in their herky-jerky way.

If there were any cynics in the crowd they still all stood and applauded as the groom kissed the bride and the bride kissed him back.