Paisley carried the rings down the aisle with the gravity of a head of state.

And as I adjusted my veil in the bridal suite, my phone rang — the hospital.

Zachary caught my eye from the doorway and just smiled.

“Go ahead and answer it.” “Zachary, I’m three minutes from walking down the aisle.” “I know.

Answer it.

And if it’s a trauma,” he said, taking my hands and kissing my forehead, “then we’ll hold the ceremony whenever you get back from saving a life.” It was only a resident with a question about a medication dose.

But I have kept the memory of what he said before I knew that, because it was the whole difference between my two weddings, said in a single sentence: one man had left me at an altar for being the woman I am, and the other would have held an altar open, indefinitely, for exactly the same reason.