I’ve been anxious to write about a wonderful wedding at the Shawnee Inn a few weeks ago. I certainly want to write about the wonderful rituals with the children, and how great it is by the river, but most of all I wanted to talk about shoes. I’ll get to that in a minute.

A wonderful family sand ceremony
The bride had two beautiful younger children, and the groom had one son a bit older. The groom’s son stood as his father’s best man. The bride’s little boy held the rings in a toy car. It was adorable. And all the kids together, with their parents responded to special vows to support and love one another. I also included words of thanks to the children for opening their hearts and sharing their mom or dad in this new family that was being created. They then participated in a family sand ceremony together. The littlest girl even had sparkly purple sand!
One of our area’s great photographers, David Coulter, sent me these great pictures from the ceremony. He is really amazing.

Even I got to wear the touch of green.
The bride asked her bridesmaids to pick out brown dresses, something they could wear again and enjoy. I love this! It’s so practical, and also ‘green,’ in that getting more than one use out of something means less wastefulness. We are in many ways a ‘throw away’ society and this is one of the many causes of environmental dilemma today. When we reuse or repurpose things, we are being conservationists. To bring it all together she gave each bridesmaid a choice of her accent color, green. They could either pin on a fabric flower or tie a sash around the waist of the dress. Viola! Instant matching outfits. The pièce de résistance was: the shoes!

Ta da! The shoes!
The bridesmaids were encouraged to pick difference styles, the more extreme, the better! It added so much fun and personality to their look.

Just had to include this photo, it's so beautiful!
They were a wonderful couple with a truly compelling personal story, and their wedding ceremony reflected who their unique journey in many ways. What a joy and privilege it was for me to pull all the elements of their lives together into a ceremony with meaning…and fun! Congratulations Vicki and Brian!