sugarplumkitty | Annual post - one day late because we were relaxing together all day.

Friday I came home with all my exciting news to find a dozen enormous red roses in the kitchen. I'd told him I didn't need the roses because I know how much he loves me and finances are getting tight. He said he couldn't break tradition and had to get them from our usual florist near my old job because we've never seen such beautiful roses anywhere else.

I stood on a red carpet in a redwood "cathedral" dressed in a white satin dress trimmed with lace encrusted with seed pearls and beads and a 15 foot train, next to my sweetie who was dressed in a tux with tails. We were surrounded by 180 friends and family members, attended by my sister, two oldest friends and a friend's little girl who were to be escorted by my sweetie's best friend, his brother and my two nephews, the younger of whom was also dressed in a tux with tails and holding a satin pillow my friend Sue made with our wedding rings tied to it with ribbons. The other groomsmen didn't have tails on their tuxes. My something old was my grandmother's pearls, something new was pretty much everything else, something borrowed was Sue's ear cuff and my garter was trimmed in blue.

We had chosen August 29th for a variety of reasons. We had met on a 29th, late August was a time in our family of several unrelated tragic losses so I wanted something positive for that time of the year and the most important reason, we wanted to get married outdoors and it doesn't rain in the summer in California unless you're up in the Sierra mountains.

I've always felt a deep spirituality in redwood "cathedrals" because they're so very old. The parent tree lived thousands of years and died. From the roots around the edges of the trunk, young trees sprouted and grew. Eventually the parent tree rots away leaving a big empty circle surrounded by younger child trees. It's a circle of continual life. I wanted the love my sweetie and I share to have that kind of permanence. He feels the same way about redwoods and us, so it was the perfect place to make our vows. We chose the minister who had done my grandmother's funeral the year before. He was very open to alternate paths to spiritual enlightenment. He was able to deal with my aversion to organized religion in a positive way. The fact that he was a protestant minister served to make my bible-belt in-laws comfortable with our wedding. He was an excellent choice as it turned out.

We were worried about the heat in the adjacent picnic area, because it's usually in the 80's & 90's (Fahrenheit) but the day dawned cooler than usual. The coastal morning fog that moves in every night in summer didn't disappear, in fact it looked oddly like rain clouds. As the bridal party arrived at the park, the sky opened with flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder. It took my sister three tries to get my petticoat inside between cloudbursts. Rain! Thunder!! Summer storms are rare here. Thunderstorms are very rare here. My sweetie and I have both always loved them. I had given my worries to my higher power, so I didn't fret about it. I trusted that things were going to work out. My mother was having kittens over it though.

The rain was just enough to dampen the dust in the park and not enough to make mud. It stopped raining while we were getting dressed. The guests arrived and I walked down behind the grove of trees trying to see my feet on the uneven stone steps. By some miracle I didn't fall. My dad's eyes were brimming with tears as I took his arm. I told him not to start or I would cry too. He managed not to cry while I was looking at him. A cousin-in-law played an original tune on her keyboard for our processional. It was all so perfect! We began our vows and right in the middle there was an enormous flash and boom of thunder. I was really hoping there was something taller nearby for the lightning to hit! The minister ad-libbed and said God was making his presence known. We could hear the rain, but the redwood trees absorbed it and kept everyone dry in the grove. A cousin accompanied by my sweetie's ex-roommate sang "The Wedding Song." Halfway through, the amplifier went out and it sounded even better than it had before. Thanks to the powers that be, the ex-roommate was playing an acoustic guitar. We finished the ceremony and turned to leave and there was silence. My cousin-in-law was supposed to play another of her original compositions but we had lost power so her keyboard was useless. The minister turned to the crowd and started singing the traditional recessional to weddings while encouraging crowd participation. Our guests sang us out. It was incredible!

The caterer in the meantime had to warm food over coals instead of on hot plates, but he managed it with a cheerful spirit. It's a good thing we wanted teriyaki chicken kebobs or there wouldn't have been coals. The rain only sprinkled on us a few more times. By the time we finished taking pictures, the electricity was back and the DJ was playing music.

My two newer best friends were in charge of making sure everything worked that day because I wanted to enjoy my wedding day. It worked wonderfully! Sue later joked that she had ordered the thunder for us, but the rain just wouldn't behave.

My dad chose the song for our dance, the Nat "King" and Natalie Cole duet of "Unforgettable." We sang to each other as we danced. Dad's an amazing dancer. My new hubby and I hadn't picked a song for our dance, so the DJ picked "Over The Rainbow" which fit the day and us perfectly. The Wizard Of Oz is our favorite movie of all time. I married a Baptist boy who was raised not dancing, so I led.

Then I sang "Evergreen" to my hubby. He tried to sing "Your Song" to me but broke down about halfway through, so sweet. I sang "In My Life" to him because I hadn't been able to decide between the two and it was my day dammit. ;o) Then the karaoke opened up to the crowd. We have a lot of musicians in the family and a lot of good singers. The karaoke couple said they usually had to sing most of the day when they did wedding receptions but this time all they sang was "Unforgettable" for my dad and me while we were dancing. I come by my hamminess naturally.

My hubby and I laughed all day. Everything was so much fun. Even the things that went wrong were perfect.

Life is so sweet sometimes!