Close to Nowhere
Sunday afternoon, in a bright, sunny glade in the forest, a fairy tale princess married her Prince Charming.
OK, it was really my youngest granddaughter and her long-time fellow Mitchell, but it really was in a bright, sunny glade in the forest.
Mitch’s family is third generation Boy Scouts. Father Wayne, mother Laura, and all three of their sons have enjoyed Scouting at Camp Yocona. Now, their grandson Leo is Scouting.
All that was so I could say Mitch wanted to get married at Camp Yocona. There is a wooden, half-chapel — the podium has a roof and the rest is benches out in the open — and it really is in the woods. There’s a trail leading to the chapel — cars are not usually on the path.
Shared granddaughter Brighton was the flower girl and the first one down the path. She was so determined to do her job right. She walked as fast as she could without running and dumped handfuls of flower petals as she whizzed down the aisle.
Oldest granddaughter Merideth came next, then their friend and another of my shared granddaughters Ashley and then Morgan as the maid of honor. Leo came down as ring bearer. He was supposed to be escorting great-grandson Shepard, but Shepard took a tumble playing before the wedding and hurt his arm falling down, so he sat in the audience and did not cry during the ceremony!
Now, it was the fairy princess’s turn. Shared granddaughter Sophie, was the “train conductor” and she was perfect holding Remy’s train up and off the trail.
Growing up, Remy loved Rapunzel and Prince Charming. She really did look like a princess in her lavender Rapunzel gown with glitter and ribbons and embroidered purple flowers. She wore a tiara with a purple tulle veil and you could see her bare feet with Sophie holding her dress up.
Did I mention that all the girls were barefooted? The guys wore shoes. We couldn’t talk them into bare feet.
We, really they, spent all Saturday afternoon making the mess hall look like a reception hall and turning the chapel in the woods into a fairy-tale glade. There was purple sparkly down the aisles and purple and silver covers for the benches and lavender and purple tulle all around the chapel roof.
The mess hall was the biggest transformation though. A chapel in the woods is already fairy-tale. Mess halls, not so much.When we walked into the mess hall Saturday, it looked like a Boy Scout camp mess hall. By the time we left, it had been turned into a flower bedecked reception hall.
There were purple tablecloths, and white and gold and silver dishes and pink and purple flowers everywhere. There was even a purple crown for a table ornament.
It really was a magical day. Somehow all the parents (and me) managed to wear purple. The bridesmaids and flower girls wore white and the groomsmen wore purple vests.
Mitch even sparkled in a vest made from Remy’s dress fabric.
But just to make sure that it was totally perfect, Mitch’s dad Wayne tied the rings to the ring pillow.
He was a Boy Scout, remember?
It took a knife and ripping the fabric to get the rings off the pillow.
A touch of humor makes every fairy tale perfect.