Everyday Silver

When R and I decided to get married, he wanted a date that was easy to remember and I wanted a spring wedding. April was out because both my mom and R had birthdays then, plus we didn’t want to get hitched on Easter, Passover, or Earth Day (usually a gig day for him). But May 1 fit the bill. It fell on a Saturday that year, and we joked that if we got in trouble, one or both of us could holler “mayday! mayday!” Besides, when I was in second grade, we made paper cones full of pussy willows to hang on our neighbors’ doors. I decided we’d decorate the pews with paper cones filled with pansies and other spring flowers.

Several different friends sang and played guitar or keys during the ceremony. The state music festival was happening right outside the chapel and would occasionally honk and rumble through open windows. Unexpected but fitting for a musician’s wedding! A friend hosted the reception out in the country, even building a stage for the band that would later become the floor of a workshop. Food and flowers filled long tables. Someone called the look “hippie Martha Stewart.”

We made all kinds of lists for the celebration, but cake server wasn’t on any of them. The day before our wedding, friends went to Walmart and bought a metal spatula. Twenty-two years later, it’s still putting good food on our plates. It’s well used and well loved—as are we.