Mike & Willow's Wedding
Shenoa
Mendocino County Aug. 24-25, 2002
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Willow & Mike threw a terrific party for about 150 of their friends and family
this weekend, up at Shenoa, the retreat in the hills of Mendocino where they met
while both lived and worked there, some years ago. In the midst of it, they got
married, in the organic garden where they once toiled. It was a beautiful, creative,
wedding, perfectly tailored by their personalities and experiences. They signed a
beautiful drawn katuba, the contract for Jewish weddings, and read promises
to each other that included, from Willow, back rubs, and from Michael, a promise to
bring his breakfast dishes to the sink. Before he stomped on the glass at the end
of the ceremony, the rabbi told him, "This is the last time you get to put your foot
down."
For many groups of their friends -- those from Shenoa, from their wild youths, or the
one that brought me there, the Web Review crew -- it was a pretty wonderful place
and time to get reconnected. Shawn, Bruce, Kindy, Arlo and Shawn's mom Norma were there,
and the Komans and Jeffrey. Bruce held Arlo through some of the ceremony, wearing a
shirt that "I don't get to wear to weddings very often." Richard and Amy found themselves
in a massage chain with Carolyn and Jeffrey -- who, interestingly, is in the process of
expanding his life's work from massage and yoga to rural real estate. :)
Willow's a caterer, and her crew of friends kept us well watered and fed throughout
the weekend -- on food that satisfied without leaving us bloated. There was a
sparkling, chlorine-free pool and jacuzzi with a million-dollar view, where the
daughters spent many hours with new friends. Some of the folks there -- most, when I
think about it -- were pretty fascinating, whether they had dedicated their lives to
organic gardening or travel or family. For example, we met a guy who had lived in
Changmai for seven years and had walked the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos as a tourist, and
we met a woman who was walking the pilgrimage
to Santo Compostela in southern France and northern Spain, a few dozen kilometers each
year on her trips home to France.
Maybe my favorite shot: at the end of it all, after throwing a once-in-a-lifetime party
for all her friends and getting hitched along the way, with most of the guests gone, we
spotted the bride, looking relaxed and fantastic in her wedding dress, munching on a
cold lamb chop and swigging chardonnay right out of the bottle. Here's to you, Willow;
you earned it.
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