All You Need Is Love

Once upon a time, two people met, fell in love, and stayed in love. 

Favorite, from this post and this post and this blog, and her Mister tied the knot in a beautiful, self-uniting and self-written ceremony earlier this month that made everyone laugh and cry and cheer at some point or another. 

Sometimes all at the same time.

The wedding was held in a Community Arts Center that was once an old estate.  Grand, gorgeous, elegant are the words that come to mind.  To give you mental picture, the ceremony was held upstairs in the ballroom (due to Hurricane Isaac crashing the wedding), and the reception was held below in the converted art gallery. 

And this is what the backyard looked like:

A water tower on the grounds where Rapunzel may or may not have been kept.
And yes, those are purses marking where the aisle would've been had
the rain stayed away.  The women of Favorite's family are ingenious.

And that, dear friends, is how this tree hugger ended up in the fifth largest city in the United States for a weekend filled with amazing people, good food, laughter, and of course, lots and lots of dancing.

I arrived in Philadelphia on a Friday afternoon, and Favorite was there to pick me up even though she had a thousand things to do for the wedding.  Unfortunately, my seasonal allergies and high altitude had done quite a number on breathing, hearing, and speaking capabilities, but we managed just fine. 

The couple had outdone themselves in providing for their guests: a welcome bag awaited me at the check-in counter complete with snacks, water, and sightseeing guide to the different parts of the city, ways to get around, and maps to get there - all put together by the groom.  They had also hired a shuttle bus for the day of the wedding to take people from the hotel to the venue and back again to save everyone the dizzying trip along the highways and residentials areas of the city.  To put the icing on the cake, they either drove or arranged rides for those of us wanting to explore the city the day before the wedding.  There isn't a word for that kind of selflessness.

So on Saturday, thanks to the coordination efforts of a lot of people, I found myself in the middle of a city I really only knew from a Bruce Springsteen song.



On the streets of Philadelphia

The trip into Center City was brief, but awesome.  I stumbled upon a farmer's market in a swanky neighborhood, made my way to Independence Mall with its attractions and hoardes of tourists, and then enjoyed a rather warm, stomach-churning taxi ride with two other wedding guests back to the hotel.  Then it was Rehearsal Dinner Time, followed by the After Parties.

This doesn't have much to do with anything.  I was just captivated by
the colors in the rehearsal bouquet.

By the time I finally crawled into bed that night, delerious from allergy and cold medications, I had been the victim of so much hospitality I was almost overwhelmed. Maybe if I had been expecting it, I wouldn't have been taken so aback by how innately good everyone was.

I'll admit it, I once held only smug disdain for the sprawling cities of the east.  Too crowded, too much anonymity, too many people trying to be too cool for school...in a manner of speaking. 

My Midwest is a place of soul-filling emotion, where family and friends crowd around in a constant swarm no matter your mood, where the ability to laugh and make laugh is prized above all else, where dirt under your fingernails is a mark of pride and worth, where people love strongly and deeply and face horrendous obstacles together knowing that they will not part.  That weekend in September, I found I could describe my ephemeral microcosm of strangers and friends in almost exactly those words. 

Somehow, miraculously, I was welcomed by both the bride's and groom's families, who treated me like one of their own despite never having laid eyes on me before.  Not once did I feel like an outsider, but instead like I had always been there, had always been a part of everyone's lives. When meeting other friends and relatives, I was repeatedly amazed by the generous and gregarious nature of them all. But then, I shouldn't be surprised. As the father of the groom once remarked, 'such good people are only going to attract good friends. They wouldn't have anybody but good people around them.'

And so, on September 2, 2012, it was under that blanket of love, light, and hope, that we welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Favorite.

After which came one of the best parties I've ever had the pleasure to attend, and one that extended well into the night.  It had all the ingredients for a good time: fun-loving people, dancing, the best bus ride ever, and enough belly laughs (due to jokes that cannot be repeated here) to make my face and stomach hurt.

Philly, you were pretty swell.