Whitney & Clark’s wedding
Whitney called on a day in November about a June wedding and came organized and prepared with photos, a list of ideas and an open mind. Also with Clark, who was emotionally present and did a lot of listening, the kind of lawyer everyone would like to have. We met in one of the private rooms of the wondrous new library, possibly my favorite place for meetings—neutral ground, free of the distractions of the farm studio or the coffee shop.
This meeting, like most, opened with my question of how they wanted the day to feel, and I still have my notes from our talk. But what I remember most from the conversation, aside from learning that these two had been together seven years and were making an evening of it with dinner in Lawrence, are the stories from Whitney’s life, of the sister she loved to her core, who had gone from this world already, whose children would be in the wedding party. The sister had to be represented. We decided we would take our time to determine how best to do this. Whitney talked about her own walks in nature, how it helped with the grief. There were always dogs along on these walks, and it came out that Whitney was not just an animal lover but an administrative-level professional in the field of animal welfare.
It was a longer meeting that day, and there were two other in-person meetings later—and correspondence over the next six months that became one of my delights of the late winter and spring of 2017. Whitney would send a photo of, say, the options for vintage china patterns from the rental company, and the linens, and I would confirm her opinion that while we were going for what she termed her “vintage modern farmhouse eclectic” style, there nevertheless had to be cohesion.
I adored both W and C—for who they were as individuals, for not being perfect nor pretending to be perfect even though they looked perfect. Clark came to every meeting, kept his own correspondence with me using his law office email, and said things like, “For my boutonniere, I would like a focal flower and texture” and “How can we make your job easier?” One of my favorite photos from the wedding is of him smiling down at me as I pin on that boutonniere.
Our set-up on wedding day was unhurried. There was time and space in the barn and on the grounds. It was a bright morning, and I felt part of things, privileged as always to be in on the secret of the set-up then have the best excuse ever to depart well before the actual, extroverted party began. (Anna was helping me that day, with both flowers and loving interaction, pinning boutonnieres, making people comfortable.)
About noon, while I was setting out table flowers, I overheard Whitney, mostly out of earshot of others, ask her friend Shandra to make sure Darius had his bridesman speech in order. A little later, while I was outside putting up a rigging of chicken wire on the arbor structure, Shandra and Darius came out in shorts and T-shirts and sat on one of the benches to go over the speech.
I heard this speech practiced at least five times in two different settings. It began, “I’m the bridesman. First time. Whitney, you look beautiful.” And ended, “Clark, remember: Happy wife, happy life.” But the middle part was what counted. I already knew that Whitney and these two friends had been together in third grade. Eavesdropping, I learned that Darius had thought Whitney was the coolest girl in class, and that he and she had finally become close friends in fifth grade. And that she had been the one who’d shown him, during high school, how to teepee someone’s house.
Whitney’s biggest dog was along for the whole day, too, behaving himself in the room where she and her family and Shandra and another friend, who had to take a call from France (and Darius, the lone guy, for part of the day), were getting ready.
We had worked out a simple way to honor the sister. Her favorite color had been orange, so I wove small orange ranunculus blooms into Whitney’s bouquet and hair flowers, and Clark’s boutonniere, and a bouquet representing the sister. The third sister carried the bouquet in during the ceremony and set it in a vase tied to a shepherd’s hook closest to Whitney, between the two of them.
One of my clearest memories from that day is of Whitney in her golden-ivory gown, off a little way alone with her dog, standing on a small rise and looking across the Missouri prairie. Taking a pause.
I fear that I’ve written this in a way that makes it sound as if that day was somber. I don’t know why; perhaps because it has rained all day today. But it was nothing like that—it was relaxed and peaceful and playful and joyous. There were bottles of beer and soda on ice for anyone, for me if I wanted. Whitney’s young nephew beamed as I pinned flowers onto his lapel; Clark’s pretty, youthful mother dashed into the kitchen where I was working and burst out, “I’m Clark’s mom!” with such delight that all I could do was say, “I have a little bouquet for you!” and try not to cry.
We stayed on as other parents and grandparents came for their flowers, then we piled our tools and tarps into the van and snuck away.
That was three years ago. The nieces and nephew are growing up. There is a new little boy who’s growing fast, too, and who I expect will always have pets.