Wedding, Books, and Creativity
or you can be creative in your second language
Holy moly!
What a week! You know this feeling: only seven days have passed, but they were packed with so many unforgettable moments that the only thing you want to do is to get yourself a huuuge mug of coffee and hibernate for a while processing everything that happened.
I’m sitting in my kitchen – aka my study as you have probably guessed from some other posts here – surrounded by flowers and books (and some lots of bottles of wine and champagne) and scrolling through wedding pictures we got from our friends. Our wedding pictures, let’s be more precise, for a week ago, on May 13, we had our wedding celebration.
I’m saying “wedding celebration” and not just “wedding” for a reason. We got married in a beautiful Parisian city hall two and a half years ago – in the midst of the Covid bedlam – but had no chance to celebrate it properly with all our friends.
So last year, we said “Let’s do it” and dove into the world of wedding preparation. If you do not mind, I will omit all the most tedious details – it is no fun, believe me, to look through yet another wedding site at midnight – and go directly to the celebration itself.
And even about celebration, I will write the most important things that concern books and writing – you are here, in the blog, to read about these topics, right?
The first and most incredible thing for me – a book lover, book nerd, bookworm! – was a gift we got from our guests: books for our home library!
Before the wedding party, my friends asked our guests to bring their favorite books that they would love my husband and me – mostly me, let’s be honest – to have in our library.
Such a great idea! Not only will I be able to discover new authors and themes but I will also have a chance to get to know everyone better. In my not-so-humble opinion, the best way to know someone better is to ask them what they love to read.
As you may guess, the only thing I wanted to do when we got to this G I F T was to find a quiet place and start my reading. But alas, it was just the beginning of the soirée, so I had to wait to have a proper me-time with my precious new friends.
So that was about reading. Let’s get to the writing part. My hubby and I are not particularly religious people. That's why we decided to have a ceremony with some religious aspects – like prayers, for instance – but that wouldn’t be recognized by the church officially.
What that means is that we had to think about the structure of the ceremony which would open the celebration and create a mood for the whole evening.
Our idea – my idea, let me brag a little bit – was to make all our guests feel that they were a part of our love story, to let them know us better. And that is what good storytelling with a well-organized structure can do.
In our ceremony, we had five parts, and each of them told our love story from different angles. The last two were my husband’s and mine. And if you let me brag again, that was a huge success!
Our guests were laughing, they were crying, in other words, even those who hadn’t met us before the party (some plus ones, for example) came to tell us afterward how genuinely happy they were for us.
I do understand that the most important ingredients for a good party are good weather, good food, and tons of alcohol but I also believe that our wedding speeches created this warm and cozy atmosphere.
And of course – of course! – I am going to let myself brag one more time, for I am proud of my speech. I achieved my main goal – to make people laugh and yet feel the importance of the moment for me – and all this in my second language.
I wrote it in French and opted for a good structure that was based on parallelism. Parallelism is a great literary device that helps to emphasize the most important aspects and create a rhythm. It is also easy to use for all non-native speakers, but a good impression on your listeners is guaranteed.
In my speech, I didn’t use long clever words. Everything was simple: short sentences, the simplest linkers. In other words, had it been a language exam I would have failed it!
And yet, that was a good speech. Why? Because, in real life, when real people listen to you, all they want is to get emotions. And there are a thousand and one ways of doing this when it comes to writing (even in your second language)!
All you need is to
Constantly ask yourself questions: what do I feel? Why do I feel it? What do I want my readers (listeners) to feel? Why? How can I do this?
Read a lot
My wedding speech proved to me again that non-native speakers can be creative in their second language. And it is not a question of their level, but mainly a matter of practice.
My other project that will help you take your first steps in writing creatively in English.
And one more thing about this week that will stay in my mind is me speaking Italian. But if you don’t mind I’ll speak about it in one of my audio notes.
Hope that you didn’t get too tired reading my bragging. But I just couldn’t help it: all these beautiful things that happened to me somehow prove that I’m going in the right direction (and that I am extremely lucky to have like-minded people who are happy for me in my life).