Done and done.

On June 7th (that is, on 06-07-08), Jesse and I got married. It was wonderful and beautiful and meaningful and delightful. We enjoyed ourselves so so much, from the ceremony to the reception, to the day after and to now. 

For posterity, I will summarize the events... All took place in Seattle or nearby.

On Friday, June 6th, Jesse and I had a very beautiful and intimate ceremony attended by our immediate family (namely, my dad, mom, brother, his dad, mom, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandma and grandpa) as well as my best friend Jen Johnson (whom I still refer to as Jen Miller, but I will catch up to her married persona soon). The ceremony was officiated by a very close friend of ours, Christine O'Connor.

The ceremony was at the Henry Art Gallery in the James Turrell Skyspace.  This space is just so wonderful to be in. It's a small oval room made all in vertical wood boards lined with a bench all the way around. In good weather, the center oval of the ceiling opens to the sky, featuring clouds, birds and the occasional jet plane passing by. It is a beautiful and spiritual place. 

Jesse and Christine waited in the Skyspace, while the rest of the party lined the short bridge that leads to the space. A little background- this is Seattle's coldest summer since 1917. The week leading up to our event had temperatures in the 50s. Fahrenheit. As in "January". Nonetheless, we're pretty crazy about each other and love Seattle, so we were still thrilled to be there.

Back to the story, 

Friday morning, the day of the ceremony, some blue peeked our from behind the clouds and we were able to have the Skyspace open for our ceremony. Even better, as Jesse and Christine waited for my dad and I to arrive, the sun burst out from behind a cloud, shining a yellow oval sunspot on the wall to their right. Jesse pointed it out to Christine, excitedly (he is a lighting designer, after all), and when he looked back across the bridge, there we were. What a cool series of events.

So dad and I walked across the bridge among all of our loved ones, both of us giggling (I had been crying-happily- all day long, up until minutes before). Dad handed me over to Jesse with a handshake and Jesse and I hugged for a while. Our loved ones filed into the space and took their seats on the benches along the perimeter of the room, as we stood in the center. Jesse was pretty giggly, and I was all smiles. It was so great to have such a small group of people so important to us in such a small, peaceful room for this important life event. The intimacy was delicious, the connection between us was so strong.

Once we had all settled in, Christine began the ceremony. It was a really lovely ceremony, and I think I'll write it up on another post and link to it here.

After the ceremony, we all stayed in the space for a while. After this, we all transported to Anthony's Home Port on Pier 66. It was a lovely dinner and a great celebration. Not to be the types to end any celebration before it's time, Jesse and I went with our siblings and their significants to the Pike Place Brewery where all of our friends had been invited to celebrate with us. That was a great time. So many friends came out to celebrate with us. 

The next day, Saturday, Jesse and I hosted a reception in Snohomish at Swans Trail Farms.

This venue is absolutely gorgeous and the family who owns it are wonderful beyond words. 

Our decorations were made almost entirely by my dad. This picture from our friend iLana Solomon shows a full table setting as well as the view from the dining/dance area.

The centerpieces were sections of a tree with a small pot of moss in the center. Each place setting had a couple of green napkins, a pressed gingko leaf (done by me) with a rock holding it all down. Fantastically, my dad made a wooden coaster for each guest, branded with a special "JJ" design that he created himself (you can see it on the top of the cake we're cutting a few pictures down). 

Our colors were green and we focused on using all natural products. Even the "plastic" cups and flatware were made entirely of corn starch.

After setting up (actually, after watching Jen Johnson take care of the setting up, she is awesome) and having our formal pictures taken (by our friend and artistic photographer Lori Erickson), Jesse and I hid out in a car in the parking lot. At 4:30, we had our grand entrances. At this point, Christine welcomed the guests and summarized our ceremony of the previous night for them. But since we wanted our wedding date to be 6-7-08, she had saved the final pronouncement for the reception. So she pronounced us man and wife there in front of everyone. This picture is from Sarah Soifer.

It was very exciting and beyond joyful. It was so wonderful to look into the barn and see so many people we love all cheering us on and celebrating with and for us.

 

The venue was gorgeous. Here is a photo from Aaron Klein (boyfriend of Jesse's sister Anya) that illustrates the beauty of the backside of the farm. This whole place was remarkably beautiful.

Dinner was catered by Kaosamai Thai and was delicious. Doug and his wife Sumalee have a restaurant in Fremont (in Seattle) but for catering, they have a truck outfitted with a kitchen, so the food was absolutely fresh. They were fun to work with and so helpful to us and our guests.

Toasts were made by Jesse's brother David, my brother Jason, our good friend Dave Snyder, my dad, and Jesse's parents. The toasts were lovely, we enjoyed hearing from all of these people. It's so great (how many times have I said "so great" in this entry? There just aren't enough words to describe these wonderful events) to hear what people think of your partnership. Like when someone you think is really great says something like "you're just so fun to be around, I'm so glad you're my friend" and you think to yourself 'wow! Really? Me? but I think you're really great!'. So to hear these toasts from people we love and look up to was so meaningful. I cried more than once. 

Our first dance was to the song "I'll Back You Up" by the Dave Matthews Band. It's a beautiful song and the dance was more special for us than I can describe. 

(photo from iLana Solomon)

Our wedding cake was made by Kathy Gundesen, a friend from high school. We had 7 cakes laid out all over the cake table on different sized wood pedestals (made by my dad). The cakes were 4 layers(!) and green tea flavor (fabulous) with white chocolate icing and vanilla/chili powder filling (you just don't know how good this is until you try it). So yummy. The templates for the fern design on the top of the cakes were designed by our friend Kristy Hilands. Kathy also etched tiny fiddleheads around the sides of the cakes. 

(photo from iLana Solomon)

We danced into the night to great music DJed by our friend and my old swing dance partner, Joe Ross. 

This more or less captures the series of events. There's more, of course, but this is a long post already, and I'm supposed to be working on some ecology stuff, so I'll leave it at this. 

I should end by saying how happy we are. We're a lucky couple, Jesse and I. Best friends, deeply in love, we hope this lasts forever.