June 07, 2008

Troth

The minister wore a long purple robe, and she used a braided rope that looked kind of like a giant friendship bracelet to tie together the hands of the couple. The ceremony, held outside at a nature center, was attended by family and friends as well as a red fox, a red-tailed hawk, and several peacocks. Teary mothers lit candles, little children squirmed in white folding chairs, a man played folk music on a guitar, and the couple exchanged vows in soft female voices. The congregation could not help laughing every time a peacock chimed in with a screeching call.

Driving to Gorgeous City that morning, I had speculated as to whether or not LovesWolves would wear a dress to her own wedding. She did not. She wore cream colored pants and shirt, with a maroon garment over the top that looked formal and ethnic. Her bride wore the more traditional white wedding dress with a most lovely swishy, swirly skirt. I kept waiting, during the ceremony, for some explanation of LovesWolves' garment, but the outfit, she told me later, was just something she'd bought. Disappointed, I began spreading rumors that it was a traditional wedding garment worn by her greatgrandfather and brought to this country in a wooden box, passed down through the family. The symbols on the cloth were Celtic, I told the people sitting at my table, and the fringe represented the community that would be supporting the new couple. By the time I had told the story three or four times, it was beginning to sound quite plausible.

This wedding was the first I've been to in a long time that didn't include any sexist traditions: I didn't mutter under my breath even once, which might be some kind of new record for me. Afterwards, we carried our chairs from the lawn down into the big main room of the nature center for an afternoon of eating and talking. Several family members got up to the microphone to give toasts that were funny and touching. "The ceremony was great," the man next to me said. "It was just this side of sappy." I spent time sorting out the relatives on both sides of the family as I sat at a table eating delicious food. The wedding cake was chocolate and vegan: definitely my kind of wedding.

Just married

The bride and bride.

9 comments:

Jules said...

I love that you made up that story...

Linda said...

Now that's my kind of wedding!

That's a great story you made up. I think it should be a new wedding tradition. If I ever get married, you need to come make up stories at my ceremony!

Jennifer (ponderosa) said...

Those flowers! How beautiful!

It sounds like such a lovely wedding.

BrightBoy said...

How absolutely wonderful. In Southern State, our constitution specifically prohibits gay marriage. I've never thought that there was anything lawful or morally right about encoding discrimination against an entire subset of society into any political entity's governing document. That's just me, though.

It's great that you live somewhere where people can just let each other be and everyone has the potential to be truly happy.

Anonymous said...

Great post. I live in Canada where gays in every province have equal rights. I'm so glad the US is catching up, hopefully sooner than later.

jo(e) said...

Well, technically this was a commitment ceremony rather than a wedding: it is still illegal in this state for two women to marry each other. I was talking to a minister about it, and she said, "We just have to go ahead and do these things anyhow so that people see them as the norm, and then legislation will follow." So that's why I used the word "wedding" instead of "commitment ceremony" when I wrote the blog post. I don't think anyone there felt like they were witnessing anything other than a beautiful wedding between two people who love each other.

Kathryn and Ari said...

It sounds like a perfect ceremony--and they look BEAUTIFUL together.

Yankee T said...

Wonderful. Good for them.

kathy a. said...

lovely!