Dave, Ann Marie and I spent Labor Day weekend in Santa Barbara, California at a truly lovely wedding. I believe a wedding that widens and deepens your heart and inspires you to be better in your own life is a damn good wedding. My dear friends Arika and Cindy (who have been together almost as long as Dave and I...over 11 years) decided to take advantage of the fact that for the time being gay marriage is legal in California. Well, they took FULL advantage and created a uniquely beautiful and inspiring wedding...and it was at the Santa Barbara Zoo... I mean, how cool is that? Dave and I trucked an ass load of sound and music stuff down and Dave played some lovely original creations during the ceremony and I sang and played two songs of their choosing" "Magnolia Street" by Catie Curtis and "Push" by Sarah McLachlan. Ann Marie was their wedding photographer (they saw her pictures from our CLL and saw how awesome they were.... and, well, the fact that she had a couple really flattering pictures of Arika in there didn't hurt). The weather was perfect. The lions waited until after the ceremony to start making rather loud angry growls. All family members behaved themselves. And I got to have a nice conversation with a very awesome bird of prey, whose name is escaping me (stanley?)... well, anyway, I thought we were communing over life and happiness until his trainer told me that he was probably looking at me so intently because predators zero in on red things and i was wearing red lipstick. oh. ok. I guess he just wanted to attack my face. it was still cool. Also - Arika and Cindy worked really hard to keep it a 'green' wedding, with wildlife adoptions at the reception tables for every person who came, favors in boxes that were made of seeds and could be planted and reused, necklaces for attendants bought from a website that made donations to charities (my necklace saved a tract of rainforest)... all sorts of great ideas. they also wrote some of the most heartfelt and sob-worthy vows I have ever heard. i was more than a little verklempt.
anyway - i'm doing a hack job of explaining it to you because a) i'm still waking up and b) it's hard to describe any experience that transcends normal every day life, but suffice to say, it was wonderful and every bit as real and special and touching and important and legal (!) as any wedding between two people deeply in love... now let's just hope oh great and glorious state of California that they will be allowed to KEEP IT THAT WAY.
