"[Katie and Austen] are just absolutely extraordinary people, the kind of people you want to be around all the time. They're funny and smart, and they love their friends and family well, with tenderness and thoughtfulness...

"The afternoon in [Newnan] was hot and clear and perfect...The twinkling lights in the low trees made it seem like we were in our very own universe, just for a little while. [Katie] was an absolute knockout bride, and her bridesmaids, elegant in [blue] with bright, lovely flowers, laughed and cried as they celebrated their dear friend's marriage to [Austen], cool and charming as ever in his linen suit...

"I had the deep sense that we were in the presence of something holy. Weddings are almost like birth experiences: something entirely new and sacred coming to life right in your midst...I believe in the way God knits two people together when they stand before him on their wedding day. Something sacred happens in that moment, something that will, with grace and intention and faith and hard work, build upon itself and grow in power and beauty and durability with each passing year...

"I know a lot of people who have given up on marriage. I understand their objections. And I wish those people could have been in [Georgia] on that day. I wish they could have felt the actually sensation of a new family being made. I wish they could have seen the bridesmaids' faces...

"There were, at some points in the ceremony, a few short moments of total silence, and in that silence what I felt was a community of friends and family who were all feeling the exact same thing at the exact same moment: this matters. What we're creating here matters. I believe in marriage, and possibly never more so than on that day...

"I'll always remember [this day], and the feeling of being in the right place at the right time to actually watch the world become a little more beautiful."

-Adapted from Shauna Niequist's Bittersweet