Goin’ to the chapel

Part II of V

Big Papa proposed a year after we met. We had just finished having dinner at Central Cinema, a little movie theater and café around the corner from the Urban Cabin. My immediate response was, “Are you serious?!” From the look on his face I could see he was indeed serious, so I gave a resounding “Yes!” We looked forward to enjoying a long, relaxed engagement.

As we talked about our vision for our wedding, we pictured something small and intimate (truth be told we also toyed with the idea of eloping to New Zealand). We both love nature, so we knew we wanted to be married outdoors. And, since our first date had been a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, we hoped we could find a little park or Bed and Breakfast on the island to host our event.

It wasn’t as easy as we thought. Parks didn’t allow alcohol and we wanted wine, B&Bs generally couldn’t handle more than 25 to50 guests and, at the time, we planned on inviting 75. Some diligent searching led us to a lovely B&B, with a little pond and a place where our immediate family could stay. It seemed like a good fit. We picked a July 28, 2007 for the date, chose Rebecca Sullivan to be our photographer, Robert Freitag of Metro Market Catering a caterer on the island and Persephone Farms, a local organic farmer for our flowers.

Finding someone to officiate was the biggest challenge. Neither of us attended a church and yet we hoped to feel a connection with the person who would perform one of the most important rituals of our lives. After nine interviews with potential officiates, we found one with whom we felt comfortable. I planned to write most of our ceremony and work with her on the details. Susan, our officiate, also agreed to being our “day of” wedding coordinator. We were off to the races!