the weddin'
Nov. 1st, 2004 06:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickiethe wedding i went to this weekend was one of the nicest i've ever seen. it's not that it was huge, because it wasn't... and not that it was expensive, 'cause it wasn't that either... i think it's because i really did see two soulmates get married, and their love for each other made the whole event perfect.
let me back up for a sec. i've known the couple, paige and sean, since he was 12 and she was 10... both of them attended the acting camp i helped teach at every summer when i was in college. they were both amazing kids, so smart and funny and just genuinely nice. all of the kids in their level, about 20 of them, were very close, and came back year after year, way past when most kids would stop the whole camp thing (some of them were still coming back at 17 years old). so i got to see them change from summer to summer, as sean grew taller and paige started wearing a little bit of makeup and they came up with hysterical, brilliant skits to perform every day. i stopped teaching at the camp around 1992, when sean was 16 and paige was 14. they stopped camp soon after, but they had built a great friendship, and so they still hung out all the time. they'd even (i found this out from her dad) sit on the phone and read the dictionary to each other for hours. ("hey, did you know the 7th definition of...") towards the end of high school, paige asked if her buddy sean would go with her to the prom... and on prom night, he kissed her for the first time, and they went from best friends to the love of each other's lives. and now there i was, over a decade later, watching 28-year-old sean and 26-year-old paige pledge their lives to each other.
the ceremony itself was wonderful. it was held at the pearl s. buck estate (yes, that pearl s. buck), in the cultural center built on the property deep in a forest exploding with orange and red fall leaves. the huppah was covered in the same leaves and strung with little white lights, and a rock band played all of the music for the event. sean hadn't changed a bit... his hair was a bit longer, so his curls boinged out into a blonde mini-fro... and paige, also exactly the same, looked like a 1930s movie star in her form-fitting white dress with red flowers in her hair. they were married by... are you ready for this?... twin-sister old-lady rabbis (one was losing her voice, so she brought her sister to do the cantoring as a backup)... and the standing-room-only service was filled with so much laughter and love. the couple held both hands the entire time, and couldn't stop gazing at each other. and bobbi (the friend of mine who ran the camp) and i just stood in the back and bawled that our little babies were so grown up.
the reception was a lot of fun too, mostly because i got a chance to catch up with bobbi, who i also hadn't seen since i left the camp. we fell right back into our friendship (we knew each other from the theatre department in college), and gabbed all night about our lives. paige and sean were thrilled we were there, especially sean... paige hadn't told him we were coming, and so when he first saw us his jaw hit the floor. all night, her dad kept passing our table and joking, "i hold you personally responsible for this!" *grin* it was the typical mix of wedding guests... lots of aunts and uncles, a few friends, a few friends of the parents (including the guy who got a grammy in the 70s for writing the song "mandy"), and an ultra-cool cousin in a bowl cut, buddy holly glasses, and brown pinstripe slim-cut suit, who looked like he should be singing "along comes mary" on ed sullivan. interestingly enough, no-one danced... the DJ was playing all this awesome swing music, and the floor was empty! when he busted out the early 90s tunes, bobbi and i hit the floor, as 120 pairs of eyes watched us boogie... and all of a sudden we realized that they all probably thought we were lesbians. two theater teachers, there with each other, bobbi in long hair and a dress and me in short-short hair and a tuxedo-cut pantsuit... yep, we were lesbians in everyone's eyes. hee hee.
so the wedding was a lot of fun. i was totally bouyant on the drive home to boston (done in exactly 5 hours, a new land speed record), and the afternoon yesterday flew by (probably because i got sucked into Myst 4... god this new game is amazing). if i can get through the election tomorrow without a breakdown, it'll be a good week.
let me back up for a sec. i've known the couple, paige and sean, since he was 12 and she was 10... both of them attended the acting camp i helped teach at every summer when i was in college. they were both amazing kids, so smart and funny and just genuinely nice. all of the kids in their level, about 20 of them, were very close, and came back year after year, way past when most kids would stop the whole camp thing (some of them were still coming back at 17 years old). so i got to see them change from summer to summer, as sean grew taller and paige started wearing a little bit of makeup and they came up with hysterical, brilliant skits to perform every day. i stopped teaching at the camp around 1992, when sean was 16 and paige was 14. they stopped camp soon after, but they had built a great friendship, and so they still hung out all the time. they'd even (i found this out from her dad) sit on the phone and read the dictionary to each other for hours. ("hey, did you know the 7th definition of...") towards the end of high school, paige asked if her buddy sean would go with her to the prom... and on prom night, he kissed her for the first time, and they went from best friends to the love of each other's lives. and now there i was, over a decade later, watching 28-year-old sean and 26-year-old paige pledge their lives to each other.
the ceremony itself was wonderful. it was held at the pearl s. buck estate (yes, that pearl s. buck), in the cultural center built on the property deep in a forest exploding with orange and red fall leaves. the huppah was covered in the same leaves and strung with little white lights, and a rock band played all of the music for the event. sean hadn't changed a bit... his hair was a bit longer, so his curls boinged out into a blonde mini-fro... and paige, also exactly the same, looked like a 1930s movie star in her form-fitting white dress with red flowers in her hair. they were married by... are you ready for this?... twin-sister old-lady rabbis (one was losing her voice, so she brought her sister to do the cantoring as a backup)... and the standing-room-only service was filled with so much laughter and love. the couple held both hands the entire time, and couldn't stop gazing at each other. and bobbi (the friend of mine who ran the camp) and i just stood in the back and bawled that our little babies were so grown up.
the reception was a lot of fun too, mostly because i got a chance to catch up with bobbi, who i also hadn't seen since i left the camp. we fell right back into our friendship (we knew each other from the theatre department in college), and gabbed all night about our lives. paige and sean were thrilled we were there, especially sean... paige hadn't told him we were coming, and so when he first saw us his jaw hit the floor. all night, her dad kept passing our table and joking, "i hold you personally responsible for this!" *grin* it was the typical mix of wedding guests... lots of aunts and uncles, a few friends, a few friends of the parents (including the guy who got a grammy in the 70s for writing the song "mandy"), and an ultra-cool cousin in a bowl cut, buddy holly glasses, and brown pinstripe slim-cut suit, who looked like he should be singing "along comes mary" on ed sullivan. interestingly enough, no-one danced... the DJ was playing all this awesome swing music, and the floor was empty! when he busted out the early 90s tunes, bobbi and i hit the floor, as 120 pairs of eyes watched us boogie... and all of a sudden we realized that they all probably thought we were lesbians. two theater teachers, there with each other, bobbi in long hair and a dress and me in short-short hair and a tuxedo-cut pantsuit... yep, we were lesbians in everyone's eyes. hee hee.
so the wedding was a lot of fun. i was totally bouyant on the drive home to boston (done in exactly 5 hours, a new land speed record), and the afternoon yesterday flew by (probably because i got sucked into Myst 4... god this new game is amazing). if i can get through the election tomorrow without a breakdown, it'll be a good week.
