“I now pronounce you husband and wife!”
Sunday May 25th 2008, 6:10 pm
Filed under: Family,Friends,Life

San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

“You may now kiss the bride.”

You may all applaud me on my restraint: it was all I could do, but I managed not to jump straight up from my chair and shout, “YAY!!!!”

If you drove on I-5 in La Jolla yesterday and saw a group of happy people snapping pictures right at the bottom of where the beam of the car obscures the view in this picture taken from that freeway on the way out, that was us.

If you remember Kathy from my book, that was her town in California, and I tried to figure out how to drop by and say hi to her mom for the first time in 28 years, but my time was too short and just too tightly choreographed.

There were moments every wedding ought to have: the old friend of my mom’s from long ago in Maryland, long since moved to San Diego, walking in the door, seeing my mother, having no idea she was the grandmother of the groom, and her jaw dropping on the floor: “FRANCES!!!”

There were other delightful moments: ain’t nobody can dance like my son-in-law. My oldest kindly lent her husband to our young niece, who danced beautifully with him and then looked way up at him with the widest Bambi eyes that said, That was wonderful, did I do that right? Can we do it again!? And then they did.

Only the flowers fade

There were ohmygosh moments, like when the wait staffer suddenly grabbed the bride’s bouquet off her table and blew fiercely on it: the edges of the flower spray had caught in the tea candle. Close one. Then the groom later put his dinner napkin on the table to go dance the first dance, suddenly realized he’d covered over another tea candle and grabbed it off quick before they had a matching set of moments.

There was the groom’s friend who danced Cossack-style.

There were the two sides of the bride’s family, getting a rare chance to come together again and renew acquaintances again as they all included us in on their joy now, too.

There were many, many people clearly having the time of their lives. I tell you, we were CELEBRATING! To LIFE!!!

There were very kind words from the father of the bride, thanking us for raising such a fine son. And you both, too, we told him and his wife. You too. Well done. So very well done. Your Kim is a peach.

There was a husband-and-wife photographer couple who so much belonged to all of us in the moments of the day as we did to them and each other and everybody and…! Such a gathering of hearts! The wife of the couple came over to me before they left to give and receive a hug goodbye, with a fervent wish from me that they lived near us, felt likewise. We would have beautiful pictures forever, not just in photographs. I certainly hope someone snapped some of them, too, for me.

There were pictures in other people’s cameras that haven’t gotten to me yet; I kept either forgetting mine or being unable to manage its clunky presence. If ever I wished I had something smaller and definitely lighter, but that was okay, there were other cameras in abundance.

There was the bride’s elderly maternal grandmother, wishing to me that she had the energy of these young folks to dance with her husband like that. I guess that was a declaration that became intent: a few minutes later, she and her sweetheart were swaying gently together to the music with the rest.

There was a friend’s musical piece playing in my head, “Sail Away,” a tune that has always spoken to me of love and belonging, in the quieter moments as I watched the boats going past our hotel room’s deck overlooking the bay from Coronado Island. My friend had no idea what a perfect future backdrop he was creating for me when he gifted me with his CD. Hummingbirds and terns flitted past our window as boats swished through the waters and on out of my sight.

There were two young people dearly and deeply in love, who laughed for sheer joy many times in the day, and a whole flock of people come to tell them how much we loved both of them and how glad we were that they’d found and come to cherish each other. And how grateful we were that they’d brought the rest of us together in their doing so.The view out my hotel room


28 Comments so far
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Congratulations on acquiring a new daughter and so many wonderful new relations all in one day. I hope you will enjoy them for a long time to come. (And I’m so glad that their burning love didn’t quite burn down the entire reception hall!)

Comment by Laura 05.25.08 @ 6:42 pm

How wonderful! It sounded so beautiful. Congratulations and giant hugs!

Comment by Birdy 05.25.08 @ 7:31 pm

Congratulations on a wonderful day.

Comment by Barbara-Kay 05.25.08 @ 7:40 pm

Oh, Alison, how truly, truly beautiful. And that temple! I am always in awe of it whenever we pass it

Comment by Linda W 05.25.08 @ 7:59 pm

Congratulations! You must be so, so proud. 🙂 And well done for not leaping around shouting “Yay!” though I suspect no one would have reeeeeally minded.

Comment by Kate 05.25.08 @ 8:38 pm

Yah! Cannot wait to see pics of the bride and groom and you in your dress and shawl.

Sounds like a perfect day.

Comment by Tiny Tyrant 05.25.08 @ 9:28 pm

Congratulations to all the families – may the new couple’s love abound as long as their role models’ love has lasted.

Comment by Kathy in San Jose 05.25.08 @ 9:42 pm

It sounds like you had a great time in San Diego. I love driving by that temple. It’s sooo beautiful.

Comment by Gail 05.25.08 @ 10:19 pm

It sounds like a truly beautiful day. Congratulations!

Comment by PrincessPea 05.25.08 @ 11:13 pm

Alison, I think your words indicate how blessed all of you are to have one another and how special your families are. It sounds like a beautiful wedding and I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures. Thanks for sharing the joy with us. Big hugs-

Comment by Tunie 05.26.08 @ 2:41 am

Congratulations!!

Comment by Danielle from SW MO 05.26.08 @ 4:56 am

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that was nice!

Comment by Afton 05.26.08 @ 6:14 am

What a lovely day. Blessings abound, as they should at a wedding! Thank you for painting a glimpse into “your” special day for us.

Comment by Channon 05.26.08 @ 6:15 am

Your description is so lovely, I know the wedding must have been as well. Congratulations!

Comment by Michelle 05.26.08 @ 6:45 am

I love those “moments” at weddings – so unexpected. Mine was when I was asked to stand in for my recentley passed away Dad to give the tosat to the bride. She couldn’t ask anyone else, my Dad was the one, so being asked tostand in for him was an honour. WHen I stood up to talk, a voice from the back of the room “Sandra?” and a 6 foot 7 inch man came barreling at me for a hug. He was there as a guest and fellow med student of the groom. Little did anyone know that Justing and I had gone through school together, from Grade 1 through graduation, and his twin sister was one of my best freinds. Neither of us knew the other would be there.
Congratulations on your new daughter, and the day sounds like a wonderful start for them.

Comment by Sandra 05.26.08 @ 7:36 am

I am so happy for all of you! It sounds like a wonderful day. Congratulations!

Comment by Sonya 05.26.08 @ 8:40 am

Congratulations to you and your growing family! Love has a way of making a day magical. =-)

Comment by Gigi 05.26.08 @ 8:48 am

Sounds like a perfect day-cold, rain and all! Such a wonderful picture you painted of a truly magical day! Would love to see a pic of you in your shawl. Congratulations!

Comment by Rena 05.26.08 @ 9:37 am

It was such a delight reading about that special day in your family’s life! Thanks for letting us in. (And so glad the tea candles didn’t spoil the event!)

Comment by Lynn 05.26.08 @ 12:07 pm

Hurray! Thanks for sharing your special day with all of us so we could celebrate with you and your family. It was magical. The boats, and those little fires, too…

Comment by Joanne 05.26.08 @ 12:43 pm

It sounds like a wonderful day. Congratulations to the bride & groom!

Comment by amy 05.26.08 @ 3:53 pm

perfection in a day – what more can we ask 😉

Congratulations to everyone!!

Comment by rho 05.26.08 @ 6:39 pm

sounds like it was a wonderful emotional day my sincere best to the bride and groom, now get some well earned rest!

Comment by grace 05.27.08 @ 2:47 am

sounds like it was a wonderful emotional day my sincere best to the bride and groom, now get some well earned rest!

Comment by grace 05.27.08 @ 2:47 am

Congratulations to you all! Thank you for sharing and bringing back the fond memories I have of many special weddings.

Comment by Mary Jane 05.27.08 @ 5:40 am

Thank you for the wonderful peek at the wedding! And congratulations all around. 🙂 We were out of town for the weekend & on the way home I was wondering if you’d posted about the doin’s. Thanks again!

Comment by Toni Smoky-Mountains 05.27.08 @ 2:16 pm

Wonderful! Congrats to you and the whole family. I’m delighted for you all.

Comment by Amanda 05.27.08 @ 8:04 pm

What an abundance of wonderful moments.
Thank you for sharing!
And congratulations to the happy couple.

Comment by Karin 05.29.08 @ 7:13 am



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