“I De Endoe”

“I de endoe..”

~Richard & Paula, Best Friends

“I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That’s getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition.”

~George Banks, Father of the Bride

Once Upon a Time… a girl met a boy at a high school football game. Sitting on the concrete bleachers of Kiggins

Bowl, chatting with friends more than watching the game—a mutual friend introduced them. He was full of

enthusiasm about his Student Exchange time, having just returned from Japan. At 15 she had a quiet personality and

was a good listener. It was complicated 6 months between that simple introduction and their first date. The

devastating loss of Pam’s father that winter wrote a new chapter for her family.

The following summer Pam agreed to Mark’s invitation to a date—a movie. The subplot had its twists & turns as Mark

went off to university and Pam to art school. This young couple coordinated calls to the fraternity and letters through

the mail. Following graduations they both took their first professional jobs. Six years to the day of their first date they

married. A story befitting a screenplay—high school sweethearts turned into married couple.

“This is true love. You think this happens every day?”

~Westley, the Princess Bride

“June Brides” was always a traditional nod to kicking off wedding season.
Although weddings have now stretched earlier into the spring on one end of the calendar, and lingering into fall with its crisp autumnal afternoons.

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

~Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally

It’s been many years since Mark & I celebrated on our wedding day. A drizzly day like today as I write this. But a

shinning reflection of our commitment to sharing our lives together. Like most brides I had a vision of what our day

would look like. Storied & Classic Romance. I had discovered a local seamstress who created wedding gowns from

traditional vintage patterns, fabric & trims. Victorian was what I envisioned and the moment I put it on it was perfect.

Vintage cotton lawn, eyelet lace & the tiniest pin tucks. Similar to the antique photo I had of a two times great aunt’s

wedding day. A laughable moment happened the day I picked up my dress after alterations, I tossed my keys into the

car after carefully placing my dress and promptly locked my keys in the car.

Timeless decisions like Victorian posed photos, a string quartet playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D, my own designs of

dried flowers in baskets & wild sweet peas tangled around wreaths (I snipped on our wedding morning), and ribbon

rounds I made to hang from the ceiling at the Academy Ballroom. All were the back drop visually to what was a

personal wedding. Mark’s lifelong friends from his fraternity were his groomsmen. I fondly remember my friend Alison,

a bridesmaid, who has since passed. Our Flower Girl & Ring bearer who years later both married at Belle Flower

Farm. My brother walked me down the aisle, and I stopped at my mother’s side. I handed her a petite posey I made

of Forget-Me-Nots in memory of my father. And Pastor Brassard not quite sure how to announce us married, “Mark

Curtis & Pam Richey Curtis—(pause)—married.”

“People call these things imperfections, but they are not, aw, that’s the good stuff. And then we get to choose who we let into our little weird worlds.”

~Dr. Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

Cheers to all the couples telling their story this Wedding Season!