The Reception By Anonymous Slightly before dawn on a brisk, cloudless Saturday in May, I drive to a wedding reception. The stars strain to be seen, exhausted from a night of glowing, as my car trundles up a narrow gravel road to the ranch. I pass through the wicker gates in an absent sort of daze, swerving into an unmarked parking spot, vaguely giddy at having the vast, muddy lot nearly all to myself. At least for now. I slide out of the car and stretch. I’m still sleepy. It’s fair, all things considered—it is six in the morning, after all—but something halts my creeping apathy: an inexplicable guilt that snags like a thorn in my side every time I think this way, of the possibility of today being anything less than the perfection the clients are expecting on their big day. The guilt catches me mid-stretch, and I freeze for a split second, then shake myself out and hike my way up to the reception hall. Beyond the reception hall, the ranch stretches over several dewey acres, a handful of crumbling barns scattered over rolling hills. The ranch hasn’t had livestock in years, which technically deprives it of its title, though my boss says the word “ranch” has the perfect sound and rhetorical
power to attract city people, so its name stays in the venue. The gentrified country air is, admittedly, quite refreshing. The reception hall is a former hayloft, repurposed and heavily glamorized with shiny wood floors and insulated four-pane windows. Even though I’ve worked here for eight years, I could never afford to celebrate my own wedding here; it’s three months’ wages for the basic package. Nevertheless, as a member of the banquet staff, I spend countless hours inside of it, anyway. Vines of fairy lights curl around columns holding the roof up, which cast various shades across the room at the press of a button, depending on the client’s intended atmosphere. The light falls delicately through the east-facing windows. True to expensive hipster venue form, I once overheard my boss tell a client that the hall costs $10,000 upfront to rent from 10 AM to midnight (enough to feed 60 orphans for a month, according to my math). This is even before the catering, vendors, live music, or any of the other hallmarks of overpriced, highfashion soirees. As I step through the massive oak doors each morning, I can’t help but feel like I’m turning on the TV to an episode of My
