Fri 6 Jun 2008
Yankee Hill farm wedding brings magic
Posted by Mojohito under Marriage
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North State Voices: Yankee Hill farm wedding brings magic
Published in Chico Enterprise Record
By SUSAN TCHUDI
Article Launched: 06/05/2008 12:09:14 AM PDT
We thought May would be the perfect month. Average high, 80 degrees. Average rainfall, less than one inch. Perfect for a wedding.
Remember the weekend of May 17? Near record-breaking temperatures? Two days before the wedding, my son — the groom — considered canceling.“I can’t even think straight in this heat,” he moaned. He and his bride were still trying to write their vows.
But of course, we couldn’t call it off. People were on their way from Ohio, New York, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, all over California, and even Romania.
At the beginning of the week, my younger son posted a piece of butcher paper on the kitchen door in our house in Chico, and our family made a list of everything that had to be done for the wedding on our farm in Yankee Hill.
Confirm the caterer, furniture rental, and port-a-potties; butcher the pig; harvest lettuce; prepare for campers on the farm; fabricate wash-up stand; cut flowers; buy thrift store vases; pick up bride’s dress; get marriage license; eradicate poison oak; pick up kegs. Forty-eight items. We assigned tasks.
Friends arrived and pitched in. One ironed my husband’s and my wedding clothes while my daughter Emily and I made bouquets for tables and the bride. Another brought vegan lasagna to contribute to the rehearsal dinner.
The guests at the farm hung thrift store sheets for a maypole and strings of white lights in the oak trees. They created an altar in front of the big rock outcrop that formed the centerpiece
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for the ceremony. They prepared the party favors — lavender pots with bows and Mojohito/Heatherlee wedding stickers. They set out bouquets and cameras at each table.
They gathered flowers for the flower girl and boy’s baskets and the wedding cake. One friend coached the children on flower distribution. My younger son built a grill to cook the pig. Another friend — a professional photographer — took pictures of everything.They did this in temperatures hovering near 100.
The bride and groom managed a brief escape to an air-conditioned coffee shop to finish their vows.
Perched above the Sacramento Valley under the bluest of skies with the Sutter Buttes in the distance, the community responded to the chimes that signaled the beginning of the ceremony. The children meticulously scattered their calendula and bachelor’s buttons and we followed — attendants, bride and groom with parents.
The couple had worked to create a ceremony that integrated community and included family members — bookended by mothers doing the invocation and benediction and siblings reading poetry during the ceremony.
But it was their vows, crafted with exquisite attention to each other’s foibles, fancies and passions read to each other in a dialogue that mixed our tears with our sweat.
The sun set, the air cooled, people ate, drank, and danced. We began the toasts, and magically the lights in the trees came on. We glowed under the full moon, the shimmering lights, and the love of a community of family and friends.
Susan Tchudi lives in Chico and farms in Yankee Hill. She can be reached at susan@turkeytailfarm.net. North State Voices, a panel of four rotating guest columnists, appears each Thursday.
