But First, Coffee: Here Comes the Bride (Again)

Good morning on this Monday, and why don’t you run and get your coffee or your tea, and I’ll wait for you right here. 

All set? Good!

Well, tomorrow is my actual anniversary — we will be married twenty-five years — but Saturday, Samwise and I held our twenty-fifth anniversary vow renewal. It started out as a simple idea, but it quickly cascaded into a larger party/event. I can tell you that the past two weeks I have been falling a bit behind on my work and the business school course I’m taking, because I’ve been focused on planning. But the ceremony was beautiful, and Sam and I both loved it, and we got to see a lot of friends. In general, it was a wonderful way to mark our quarter-century of being together.

My friend Tiffany gave us the wonderful gift of taking over as event coordinator, and not only that, but she got our gardens in order. Here are some of the beautiful pictures of the work she did.

For our anniversary, as a sort of gift to both of us, I bought a sign for the yard. We named our property Rowanwood Grove when we moved in and now we have an actual sign for it.

My assistant Andria bought us the beautiful lanterns hanging from either side of the sign. She also did a tremendous amount of work helping with everything from the baking — because, of course, with my histamine intolerance and food allergies we had to make everything — to helping Tif with the gardens, to setting up, and putting things away.

We decorated like crazy with silk flowers and garlands and lights and re-did the heart broom, and all sorts of beautiful arrangements. We didn’t have real flowers inside due to the number of allergies present.

My workout partner Jo stood as our officiating priestess, and my niece Jade and my best friend Carol were part of the ritual — they were my bridesmaids/ritual participants.

A number of friends were able to come, including several people who were at our first wedding, one of Sam’s sisters and one of his stepbrothers showed up from out of town, and a friend of mine flew in from Kansas. We had been planning to have the ceremony in the yard, but the sun turned to rain so we adjusted for the indoors. My ceiling still sparkles with the stars that Tiffany hung up.

We use the original ceremony, adapting it for our renewal, and our personal vows were similar yet slightly different, taking into account the years we spent together and what we’ve learned. We used our original wedding broom, but spruced it up the event, and I wove a new handfasting cord for the ceremony. We managed to have directional altars even though we had to move it inside.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and, even though I’m glad the planning is over because it was exhausting, we made a good choice to step into this new phase in our relationship.

So, what has been one of the most significant and joyful events in your life?