Wedding Bells Will Ring

        Andrew Marvell said, in a poem to his coy mistress, "But at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot drawing near." He was referring to his desire to make love to his beloved before she grew old, but the phrase echoes in my ear because, whatever does or does not get done, Time draws nearer and nearer with the big wedding day, May 18, in his chariot.

        There's a huge lot to think about and do—so many details! I had the final fitting for my dress this afternoon. (No picture; Mike reads my blog.) Mike has made the wedding arch, using grapevines and a firm foundation in old hiking boots and ski boots, illustrative of two activities we so much enjoy together and that brought us together in the first place.

We have met with the officiant to discuss his role. Mike's sister-in-law is doing such a great job organizing the lasagna-and-salad pot-luck dinner I've crossed that worry off my list. I'll let her deal with the gluten-free people and the vegetarians and the people who refuse to eat anyone else's food. A pot-luck might be strange at a wedding, but the alternative was to restrict the number of guests to a handful and provide a dinner. We chose to include many friends and ask them to participate. There'll be plenty of wine, thanks to a number of generous donors. 

        I've made all the food for the combined-family brunch at my house and put it in my freezer. The weed-eating and window-washing are scheduled four days before the brunch.

        The wedding will take place on the upper Applegate River. Everyone in the wedding has received a map of the land, showing were to wait, where to walk, and where to stand. My son will start the ceremony by playing his piano-wire-and-steel instrument, the Stamenphone, on the lower river trail. 

Ela, playing his Stamenphone at the Oregon Country Fair, 2009

All the guests will gather on that trail to watch the entrances. The groom and all the attendants—his brother, nephew, two daughters, and four grandchildren; my two sisters, my granddaughter, and her cousin—will come from one direction. My entrance, attended by my brother and grandnephew, is a secret but has been well planned. After all that, the children will strew rose petals in the path, leading the whole procession to the wedding platform with its wedding arch, by that time decorated with flowers and boughs. All the guests will join the procession.

        My vows are written. I will promise to love, and I will promise to honor, but I do not promise to obey. I do not promise to call the sun the moon just because Mike says it is. I trust that Mike will not try to tame me, and I will promise not to become a shrew because I wouldn't, would I? if I loved and honored my husband.

        My husband. The words sound thick on my tongue, just as thick as "his wife." It's such an enormous step I blanch. I understand the essay "How to Get out of a Locked Trunk," by a man who was about to get married. I've often wondered how his marriage turned out. I think about my friend who said he woke up the day after his wedding and thought, "I've just made the biggest mistake of my life." The excitement so many of my friends and even more distant acquaintances have expressed about my marriage is a little puzzling. Knowing how many marriages end in divorce, why all the excitement?

        When Mike and I talked about getting married, he said, hesitantly, "What would change?" I shrugged and said, "Nothing." On the face of it, that's true. Neither of us will move in with the other, so our living situations won't change. (Most people think this is strange, but one friend said, "I get it. Why ruin a good thing?") Somehow, though, I feel that something enormous will change when we are husband and wife. I'm not sure what it is, but I know there will be a difference. It's a difference that scares me, after being single all my life, but one I know, in the depths of my heart, is right.