Kate and Cormac are married! It’s hard for me to put into words how wonderful their wedding weekend, and the week preceding it, really were. I feel like I came away with a whole new perspective on weddings, which I suppose isn’t all that surprising, because although I deal with weddings all day every day, I’ve never been this close to one.

It’s become normal to hear two things from brides after their weddings. The first is that the day zipped by so fast they can hardly remember it. The second is that there were inevitably disappointments, and whether they were major or insignificant, they are hard to leave behind. Like a lot of people, I just accepted these things as the way it had to be for super-involved, detail-oriented, DIY-heavy brides, particularly ones who are flooded with fabulous imagery from wedding blogs and magazines.

Kate might correct me, but I don’t feel like either of these were true for this wedding, and this was largely because of Kate. She was an exceptionally calm and laid-back bride, but it was more than that. She didn’t put as much pressure on her one wedding day as I think most brides do. It wasn’t that she had low expectations, it was just that her expectations were realistic. She took everything as it came and was thrilled about it. She thanked everyone enthusiastically and often. Her guests knew she was happy to have them there and so grateful they made the trip to celebrate with her and Cormac. She wasn’t worried about timelines or what vendors were doing or spilling things on her dress once she got to the reception, she just wanted to eat delicious food and visit with family and friends that we don’t get to see often enough.

At one point on Saturday, one of the guests came up to me and congratulated me on a successful reception. She said something along the lines of “I’m sure things went wrong that we didn’t see, but everything looked great to us!” When I thought about it, I realized that actually, nothing really had gone “wrong.”

Did everything go exactly as we had planned? Not quite. The ferry to the Island ran out of gas in the middle of one of its runs transporting guests to the ceremony. The icing on the cakes was more royal than navy. The linens on the cocktail tables were a tad bit shorter than I would have liked.

But I say nothing went wrong because both in the moment and in the end, it didn’t matter. The ferry situation was fixed within minutes, and the details were just a vehicle to create an atmosphere where our guests felt welcomed, celebrated, and a part of something special. No royal blue icing was going to change that.

I’d love to hear what you think. Did you have realistic or unrealistic expectations for your wedding day, either in relation to how you would feel or how things would look? Were you disappointed on your wedding day or post-wedding? Do you think we just got lucky with our beautiful weather and beyond-excellent vendors and that I would feel differently if something major went wrong? Let me know!

And now to tide you over, a recap of the weekend in three photos courtesy of Jenna’s Twitter and blog.

We played wiffle ball:

We had a welcome dinner:

And we had a wedding:

It was wonderful.

(That’s only part of it.) And so is the tent! And it was another beautiful day! Hallelujah!

…among many other things! We’ve been busy bees ever since arriving in Maine. We’ve hauled loads of wedding stuff across the water and up a hill (with the help of the one truck on the Island)…

…constructed signs (remember them?)

…taken a few trips into town (including for a hair trial this morning!)

…and discussed many things (luckily we had a beautiful place to do it in).

Mostly it’s just nice to be here with my whole family in a place we love, no matter what we’re doing. And the view isn’t bad, either:

{Jose Villa}

Addison tells of spending his summer
clearing the farm his family has owned
since the revolutionary war
acres and acres of overgrown fields —
pastures and hayfields, hedgerows, forest growth —
a big enterprise for an ex-farm boy
turned minister in a flowing cassock
not handy for plowing. I’ve seen him lift
the bread and wine in pale hands above
the bowing heads of his parishioners.

And as he tells about his summer work
I see the chalice turn into a saw,
the handles darkened with his father’s sweat,
and before that, his grandfather’s, on down
the generations until the sad phrase
delivered in the garden comes to mind:
“sweat of your brow,” which now is Addison’s,
clearing the land so that we see the light
as it first shone on Adam, pruning turned
into a kind of hands-on ministry.

What did he see once the hedgerows were cleared?
The skies opening, divine light beaming down
on distant vistas of a promised land?
Salvation for God’s sweating minister?
But he saw only what was there to see —
rolling green hills such as a child might draw,
cars moving on a distant road like beads
on an abacus, a neighbor hanging wash:
the earth released and grown so luminous
that he was saved simply by seeing it.

–Julia Alvarez

P.S. Even though next week is Wedding Week, I’ll be popping in with a few pre-scheduled post… and maybe a few behind-the-scenes details from our preparations! Wish us luck!