Tell me in short, Love, what is a wedding? / A wedding is at once a crowded place / and a private room, packed with trusts / and empty of all but the heart’s letters / which one other heart may read and decipher

let the compass points gather in one center / as rambling desires gather, as the circle / of abstraction, of invitation and guesswork, / becomes the circle of pledge and deliberate / speech:

see, the circle widens to enclose, and in it / two are dancing and then it grows smaller / and in it two are colliding like sparks / and make one fire, and so Love, at least, has done her part […]

In some ways, getting engaged seemed as significant as any wedding could be; we’d said aloud to one another that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives that night. I think there was a part of us that felt the wedding was more symbolic than anything else: an opportunity to share things uniquely us with those we love, a chance to celebrate our decision to spend the rest of our lives together—a decision we had already made, many years before—with friends and family. A chance to throw a fantastic party.

But we were both still a bit blown away by just how powerful the ceremony was. Standing across from one another under an oak tree, a cool wind blowing through the valley, we were both reeling with excitement and overcome with emotion. We recall holding onto each other’s hands so tightly, as if we might slip away if we were to let go. The circle grew small.

The ritual of the wedding—saying those vows—was clearly so much more than just a celebration of a decision.

Today marks ten years since that day. Happy anniversary, Aron!

Some previous anniversary posts:

A couple of favorite photos from our wedding. And our invitations.

One of our traditions—and learning some of yours.

[Photos by Susan Yee for Hither & Thither (exception: bottom photo from our wedding by Kasey Lennon). Poem excerpt: “The Blaze of the Poui: An Epithalamion,” Mark McMorris.]

 

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