Weddingbee Blog

Oh, you guys, I have been looking forward to this post ever since I started my recaps. Not because I have something deep to share, but because I can finally tell you why these posts have been called what they have been called.

Some back story: Fancee and I have gone to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for the past couple of years, and the last year we went, she woke up in the middle of the night to hear this absolutely beautiful song at the tent next to ours. She said it was hauntingly beautiful, but she couldn’t remember anything about it. She heard it again the next night and woke me up for it; I agreed that it was beautiful, but you would be impressed at my ability to sleep through things—I also didn’t remember a thing.

I LOVE folk music and I tolerate this tent!

…which led to our love affair with the Wailin’ Jennys, whose amazing music you may recall from our processional.

When we were trying to figure out what music to use in our ceremony, and especially for our first dance, it all felt like something of a struggle. We’d hear a song and say, “Oh, this is beautiful and we dance to it (in the kitchen) all the time!” and then we would read the lyrics and realize that it was about dying or leaving someone forever or about a long lost love that stays really quite lost. Not the kind of stuff we wanted at our wedding.

And then we found this song:

It’s not about marriage, and it’s maybe not about love. But it felt like it just fit. If you can listen to this song while you look at these pictures and read this, do it. I have it on repeat while I’m writing this, and my heart is breaking (open) with all the love and beauty of the song and the day and how wonderful it all was. With that, our (second) first dance:

The wind howls ‘cross the ice floes
Send the frozen snow skimming
A river on a river hardened over
It doesn’t know the way it’s going
Is it north or south or westward
It just glides across the shoreline ’til it’s over

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I’d tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you

A moth caught be the flame it could cannot measure
And there we go again, wishing something bolder
Trying to push and pull inside this moment
Trying to mold this life within our hands

This is where the whole world keeps on turning
This is where we come undone…undone
Will they measure me by branches…

Why, yes, that is a choreographed dance you see in the last picture—the entire choreographed dance. Those are some amazing moves I have, no?

Before this, we:

• Had a chaotic evening before the wedding and an early morning rehearsal.
• Got ready together, got ready some more separately, and then had a first look.
• Watched our family and friends process in and met each other in front of all of our guests.
• Listened as our minister welcomed our guests and some of our best friends gave some lovely readings.
• Watched our rings traveled among our guests while more poems were read.
• Said our big words and were blessed by the universe.
• Breathed a sigh of relief as our rings returned, not only unscathed, but also blessed, and we exchanged them and heard another reading. Oh yeah, and then we danced up the aisle.
• Were for serious married! We took off in a canoe and returned for family pictures.
• Took pretty and seriously fun pictures with our bridal brigade!
• Ran off into the woods together and snuggled.
• Listened to some of our closest family say the most heartwarming things about how wonderful we are (thanks, family!).
• Ate food and declared even more of our wedding The Best Part.