Marriage in Mathews County

Once you get to a certain age, you suddenly start going to a lot of weddings. Gradually they all tend to fade into a white-dress-pretty-flowers-dancing-music-best-man's-speech kind of blur, but a few still stand out. Some for good reasons, some for bad, and some for just being an altogether lovely day.

Of course, when it's your brother getting married, that automatically makes it stand out from the average, but John and Kristal's wedding definitely fell into the "altogether lovely day" category. With my grandfather officiating, they made some simple and beautiful vows under a shady tree in the garden of Kristal's honorary grandparents. The Chesapeake Bay shimmered in the background while a soft breeze kept things cooler for the guests seated on gingham-covered hay bales. After a few family photos by the cheerful photographer, John and Kristal departed for the reception venue, perched up on the back of a red convertible (don't worry, the roads are very quiet!)

The reception was at a yacht club just down the road, and featured flowers grown and arranged by Kristal's parents, strawberry daiquiris made with berries that John and Kristal had picked, and a handsome cake baked by Kristal's sister. This wedding took family involvement to the max, and the result was really relaxed and happy. A description which also applied to the bride and groom and spilled over to all the guests. They'd found a great duo to provide the music and had obviously rehearsed some moves for the first dance! Later Graham and I were prodded onto the floor and got an unexpected round of applause for our rather rusty rendering of LeRoc - I guess we haven't completely lost the magic!

John and Kristal left in a cloud of bubbles, and after signing the hand-made quilt and picking up a jar of home-cooked strawberry jam (you would not believe how much effort these two put into the wedding!) their friends and family headed home as well. What an altogether lovely day.

Comments

John Evens said…

Thanks, really - You're too nice!

10 August 2009 at 20:19

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions. The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?" This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them. Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone. That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of. Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died. And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was. His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...

A mini-pilgrimage to Derby Cathedral

On a sunny day near the end of June, I set out to walk from my village of Findern to Derby Cathedral. If this had been 1826 or even 1926, this would have been a perfectly normal activity. In 2026, no one spends two hours walking to the nearest city. They drive, or catch a bus. It feels faintly subversive to ignore the more obvious modes of transport and to set off on foot. Priory Way, the footpath north out of Findern, is on the Six-Inch series of OS maps from the late 1800s. It has probably not changed much, give or take a few electrical pylons. The fields and farms are still there. Butterflies flew over bright yellow flowers of lady's bedstraw; a hare paused to look at me; a squirrel panicked and almost ran over my toes. After a few miles I came out at Heatherton Pond, greeting its more manicured path with relief. This is now the edge of Derby city; the boundary runs just south of the lake. However, I was surprised at how much more green space I encountered. A cycle path took me ...

Sheffield Cathedral: dogs and lions welcome

Earlier in the day I had caught the train up from Derby and visited Rotherham Minster . The Supertram from Rotherham brought me to Sheffield Cathedral just as the clock struck two. I realised as I left the tram that I had totally forgotten my cathedral passport until now. Rotherham may not have had a stamp anyway, though I probably could have got the vicar's signature or something, but I dug the passport out of my bag to be sure to remember it. The shop had a stamp, I was told, and so it did. Formalities completed, I went to explore Sheffield Cathedral. It's a strange jumble of a building; "one of those forever unfinished places" as an architectural journal describes it. This view along the church towards the east end makes it look pretty standard - a medieval chancel and a Victorian-renovated nave. But if you turn ninety degrees to the north, there is another long axis - a regimental chapel that leads through to the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. At one point in the 193...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog