Weddings: Now and Then

Well, it all went off without a hitch...except one. As intended.

Katie was lovely in a hot pink silk frock (stitched by sister Molly, who also performed the ceremony), the weather was that one gorgeous day on the cusp between summer and fall, both of the margarita machines worked spectacularly well, and no one fell in the lily pond.

Casey (and Tom, Brooke, Rachel, Amy, Joe, and Zach) produced a pig that was succulent, tender, faintly lemony, melt-in-mouth wonderful--barbecue like candy. Casey is likely not yet recovered from his all-day-all-night-all-day stint at the pit. What a guy. What a crew!

DiAnne's flowers were unbelievably gorgeous: a luxurious mix of wild and garden flowers from the neighborhood.

The young folks danced (I presume--the house was pretty much acting like a woofer-amp, vibrating to the bass) until near-dawn. When I got up for coffee and the newspaper there was a large pile of humanity bedded down on mattresses in the living room, which eventually sorted itself out into daughter Rachel, visiting Massachusetts mariners Joe and Amy, Jason, and Seth, who is two months into a bike trip to Seattle.

Ran into Milwandt while picking up the paper: he was cutting young loofa squash off our fence for dinner. Gave me a wild persimmon, a bag of pastries for the kids' breakfast, and a gigantic pale green squash, variety unknown to me.

Things are so different and yet the same: Twenty-seven years ago this week Tom and I got married on that very same front porch. DiAnne did the flowers (and painted Tom's waterlily tie that went so well with his white linen suit), Jill and her All-Boy Band sang for the reception, and Katie, who was about three, ran around in a little white dress with a circlet of flowers in her hair and ribbons trailing down her back.

She was darling. Still is. Thanks for marrying her, Leif.