So, I have a very good friend. We share Mabel responsibilities, a kitchen, love, excitement for life and traveling and learning and making and filling pretty much everything over the brim with goodness and funs.
We decided to celebrate that in the presence of our loved ones.
My friend gave me a gift certificate back during the week of Thanksgiving 2009 while we were staying in the small one room cabin we first visited in November 2006 (he didn't know, at the time, that it didn't have windows or wood to stoke the only piece of furniture inside--the woodstove) as a young, confused, couple giving it a go at that tenuous time when one is almost done or completely done with college, trying to figure current and future life out (not to mention from 3 hours away...the closest we lived for the first 2.5 years of our time together). The gift certificate was to make rings. We kept it hush hush until we finished crafting our rings and could show them to our family as a means of announcement. The artist who helped us create them was a smart man. He gave us the tools and materials we needed, and pointers along the way. A few sessions later, we had our sterling silver rings, decked out with a dark, warm patina and each other's fingerprints on the inside of each band (and some new knowledge of jewelry-making and metallurgy).
This all, coincidentally, took place in the space that used to be where by father would have his boots resoled in the town I grew up in. We decided we'd have a small family ceremony at my aunt and uncle's place the following Thanksgiving(where I spent every Thanksgiving and near where my grandmother and her twelve siblings were raised), and then a casual gathering of friends at the folk school I worked at back in winter 2008-2009. Which brings us to this most recent Thanksgiving. Almost.
First, I had to find some fabric in town and send it to my mother so she could make my dress. Second, I had to create invitations. Third, we had to plan, organize, and execute everything else, relying on the talents and interests of many of our closest friends and family members and John's crazy Excel skills.
We found the most affordable fabric we could at a little fabric shop in downtown Missoula and brought it up to be measured, cut, and sold to us. Turns out, it had been sitting in a woman's attic since her father brought it back from World War II. It was raw silk from Japan. But, we're supposing, because they invested no money into it, it was all profit, so it was less than 10 bucks a yard. With a Simplicity pattern, Marmy got on her sewing way.
And, using a block print design I had created earlier (on a card which John had actually given me the gift certificate in), we spent several evenings stamping all of the recycled cardstock invitations.
Come the craziness of my first semester of grad school + teaching, John's father and stepmother were a great help with decorations, my father and mother got food together for the party, Aunt Karen and Uncle Tim were prepared to host a slightly bigger Thanksgiving dinner (and build an arbor, several bonfires, etc), and so on.
The big day came, and our late fall wedding turned into a winter ceremony (almost a foot of snowfall plus subzero temperatures...thank goodness I packed the mukluks I made at North House two years earlier). My brother, with whom we drafted the ceremony, officiated (and did a swell job at that!). Our parents each read a quote, message, or passage they found meaningful and brought up to the arbor a stone we had collected from significant places in our lives we hope to build into our future home.
It was followed by a big family dinner and the annual football game out front.
That night, we stayed at the old cabin. Mabel loved running around the forest.
The next day we headed off to northeastern Minnesota to get North House ready for one hundred guests. I can't say enough how much hard work family and friends put into clearing ice, hanging lights, setting out luminaries, and stoking the wood-fired brick pizza oven on the shore of Lake Superior. By Saturday, we were ready. It was great. Everyone made and consumed their own pizzas (for toppings, we went potluck style and had everything from bear to artichoke hearts), ate ice cream and cupcakes (deliciously pumpkin and made by friends), drank homebrew (some we had brewed ourselves, a bunch from friends), danced a contra (called by John's former soils professor), and partied 'til the wee hours of the morning. I cannot be thankful enough.
It was a great way to celebrate our shared time together and the centrality of family, friends, and a handmade life.
Click here to see a slideshow of more photos from the ceremony and celebration.*click on the orange "view photobook" button and then "full screen" (in the upper right) if you like
Also, it turns out that our superanniversary (when Thansgiving falls on November 25th) will align every 11 years, so look out for a big party in 2021 (with some luck, we'll have those stones built into a cozy home and lots of land to dance on by then).
