Tammy Swift of Inforum:

Nadine Schweigert says her wedding went so perfectly that it left her in awe.

The bride wore a long, satiny dress in peacock blue and carried a cluster of white roses. Schweigert’s best friend stood up for her. After the ceremony, guests enjoyed white wedding cake enrobed in peacock-blue fondant and New Orleans-style king cake.

The affair was missing just one, teensy detail: a groom.

In a purely symbolic ceremony, the 36-year-old “married” herself before a crowd of 45 friends and family members Saturday at Ecce Gallery in Fargo.

During the observance, the Fargo woman read her vows: “I, Nadine, promise to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self.” She presented herself with a ring and invited all guests to “blow kisses to the whole world” at the point of the traditional, bride-groom lip-lock.

“I’m very proud of it, and I feel very good about it,” says Schweigert, who works at Swanson’s Health and teaches yoga. “I’m so glad I did it.”

Schweigert views the secular ceremony as a public pronouncement that she has learned to love and accept herself as she is.

That hasn’t always been the case. The divorced mother of three says she struggled for years with self-acceptance, attending therapy groups and studying books like Melody Beattie’s “Codependent No More.”

“I was waiting for someone to come along and make me happy,” she says. “At some point, a friend said, ‘Why do you need someone to marry you to be happy? Marry yourself.’”