This is our ninth anniversary. In the rush to get the kids out the door and to school, I hadn't really made a note of the date until I came home and Earl greeted me with an extra-long kiss. On other anniversaries, I have thought wistfully of all the people and the dancing and how crazily happy I was to be marrying such an amazing man. Today, thinking back, my overwhelming feeling is relief--relief that we don't ever have to do that again.
Some weddings are big productions because the couple, or their parents, wants a big show. Our wedding got to be a big production without anyone wanting it to be. We got married in the pasture in front of the house, on benches borrowed from the fire department. Some friends of Earl's roasted a pig, the caterers brought some salads and appetizery things and opened wine bottles and we had had music from a DJ in the shop part of the big shed and tables and chairs in the hay part. My mom baked the cake and altered my clearance-rack dress. My friend, Bernadette, baked the bread and sang a song. Earl's sister and Uncle Vaughn read Corinthians and a poem. My sister stood up for me. Earl's brothers stood up for him. Charlie Brown, a retired dairy farmer and justice of the peace, officiated. The ceremony took about fifteen minutes and then we ate and danced and Billy gave a really nice toast and then we went to the Norwich Inn for the night.
Simple enough, but there was the part where the people who were supposed to build the shed cancelled and then Earl, with lots of help from Billy and their friends, built the shed in the two weeks before the wedding, putting the ridge cap on just as the first guests came up the driveway.
It hadn't seemed very RockBottom-like to rent port-a-potties, so we built an outhouse, a sort of nice outhouse, with two stalls, a porch, a sink and running water. We had it mostly framed out by Thursday , but without my brother, Eric, and Earl's cousin, Nelson, I'm pretty sure everyone would have had to pee in the woods. Earl dragged the finished outhouse into place with the bulldozer that morning and the photo album shows my mom running up with a twelve-pack of toilet paper, just as everyone is getting settled for the ceremony.
Getting the pig dead and cooked was a bit of a project, involving a full cast of characters, lost and then found guns and ammunition, several bottles of Captain Morgan (one of them bought by my dad, along with a pack of unfiltered Camels, much to his straight-laced horror), and Josh's girlfriend, Lisa, who was the only one sober and drove all over creation trying to find the whereabouts of the pig cooker, only to finally find its owner twenty minutes after he'd passed out. There was another pig cooker, a better one, but it was mounted on a trailer that needed a 2 and 5/8 ball hitch and no one had one. The effort was stalled out here at three in the morning when I went up to the barn to start milking early. Oh, I told Denny and Josh when he explained the situation, I have a 2 and 5/8 hitch on my truck. But then I remembered that the registration had lapsed a few days before. They laughed, doubling over, at the idea that a little piece of legal paper would be at issue on the dirt roads of Orange County, Vermont at three o'clock in the morning. So cooker arrived and was fired and everyone said the pig was very tasty.
I don't exactly remember which construction project(s) my brother-in-law, Jess, worked on, but I still don't think he's forgiven me for saying no when he called before they left Wyoming to ask if he should bring his tools.
Jamie ran the electricity to the shed as soon as I got out of the shower and he could turn the power off. His brother, Rett, mowed aisles in the shin-high grass for guests to follow, preserving the rest of the pasture for the cows' feed the next morning.
Earl's sister, Sophie, ran the to-do list and pretty much everything else, taking care of all the helpful relatives and her three kids in stride. Earl's sister-in-law, Oona, did the flowers. My sister, KJ, filled balloons and wrapped potatoes and drove me around to three different town clerk's offices when someone remembered that we needed a marriage license, at 5 pm. on Friday afternoon. As it was, we wouldn't have really gotten married that day if Jody, Charlie Brown's daughter-in-law and assistant town clerk, hadn't come in after hours to do the license.
Gabe and Ben wore bow ties and did all the parking; I have relatives who still inquire after them, remembering them as the nicest young men they're ever met. I think they were also involved in getting whoever got stuck in the ditch unstuck, but I can't be sure. I think Biggie drove the tractor for that and I know he milked that afternoon with Gabe's brother, Brandon, finishing in time to clean up for the dinner and party.
Now that I think of it, it had the feel of a great many high-output RockBottom days. Lots of people doing all kinds of things and it all coming out pretty well despite looking pretty doubtful for most of prelude. Most of the time there are less than 350 people to disappoint if we screw up, however, and I hope it stays that way. There are a hundred reasons to stay married to Earl, most notably that I'm crazy about him and love him even more dearly than I did when I agreed to all this nine years ago. Another reason is that when a wedding is that big a production, it sort of seems like we should be having a marriage that lives up to all that fuss. So far, I think we're doing okay.
Some weddings are big productions because the couple, or their parents, wants a big show. Our wedding got to be a big production without anyone wanting it to be. We got married in the pasture in front of the house, on benches borrowed from the fire department. Some friends of Earl's roasted a pig, the caterers brought some salads and appetizery things and opened wine bottles and we had had music from a DJ in the shop part of the big shed and tables and chairs in the hay part. My mom baked the cake and altered my clearance-rack dress. My friend, Bernadette, baked the bread and sang a song. Earl's sister and Uncle Vaughn read Corinthians and a poem. My sister stood up for me. Earl's brothers stood up for him. Charlie Brown, a retired dairy farmer and justice of the peace, officiated. The ceremony took about fifteen minutes and then we ate and danced and Billy gave a really nice toast and then we went to the Norwich Inn for the night.
Simple enough, but there was the part where the people who were supposed to build the shed cancelled and then Earl, with lots of help from Billy and their friends, built the shed in the two weeks before the wedding, putting the ridge cap on just as the first guests came up the driveway.
It hadn't seemed very RockBottom-like to rent port-a-potties, so we built an outhouse, a sort of nice outhouse, with two stalls, a porch, a sink and running water. We had it mostly framed out by Thursday , but without my brother, Eric, and Earl's cousin, Nelson, I'm pretty sure everyone would have had to pee in the woods. Earl dragged the finished outhouse into place with the bulldozer that morning and the photo album shows my mom running up with a twelve-pack of toilet paper, just as everyone is getting settled for the ceremony.
Getting the pig dead and cooked was a bit of a project, involving a full cast of characters, lost and then found guns and ammunition, several bottles of Captain Morgan (one of them bought by my dad, along with a pack of unfiltered Camels, much to his straight-laced horror), and Josh's girlfriend, Lisa, who was the only one sober and drove all over creation trying to find the whereabouts of the pig cooker, only to finally find its owner twenty minutes after he'd passed out. There was another pig cooker, a better one, but it was mounted on a trailer that needed a 2 and 5/8 ball hitch and no one had one. The effort was stalled out here at three in the morning when I went up to the barn to start milking early. Oh, I told Denny and Josh when he explained the situation, I have a 2 and 5/8 hitch on my truck. But then I remembered that the registration had lapsed a few days before. They laughed, doubling over, at the idea that a little piece of legal paper would be at issue on the dirt roads of Orange County, Vermont at three o'clock in the morning. So cooker arrived and was fired and everyone said the pig was very tasty.
I don't exactly remember which construction project(s) my brother-in-law, Jess, worked on, but I still don't think he's forgiven me for saying no when he called before they left Wyoming to ask if he should bring his tools.
Jamie ran the electricity to the shed as soon as I got out of the shower and he could turn the power off. His brother, Rett, mowed aisles in the shin-high grass for guests to follow, preserving the rest of the pasture for the cows' feed the next morning.
Earl's sister, Sophie, ran the to-do list and pretty much everything else, taking care of all the helpful relatives and her three kids in stride. Earl's sister-in-law, Oona, did the flowers. My sister, KJ, filled balloons and wrapped potatoes and drove me around to three different town clerk's offices when someone remembered that we needed a marriage license, at 5 pm. on Friday afternoon. As it was, we wouldn't have really gotten married that day if Jody, Charlie Brown's daughter-in-law and assistant town clerk, hadn't come in after hours to do the license.
Gabe and Ben wore bow ties and did all the parking; I have relatives who still inquire after them, remembering them as the nicest young men they're ever met. I think they were also involved in getting whoever got stuck in the ditch unstuck, but I can't be sure. I think Biggie drove the tractor for that and I know he milked that afternoon with Gabe's brother, Brandon, finishing in time to clean up for the dinner and party.
Now that I think of it, it had the feel of a great many high-output RockBottom days. Lots of people doing all kinds of things and it all coming out pretty well despite looking pretty doubtful for most of prelude. Most of the time there are less than 350 people to disappoint if we screw up, however, and I hope it stays that way. There are a hundred reasons to stay married to Earl, most notably that I'm crazy about him and love him even more dearly than I did when I agreed to all this nine years ago. Another reason is that when a wedding is that big a production, it sort of seems like we should be having a marriage that lives up to all that fuss. So far, I think we're doing okay.
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