Part One. By
Ry.
It was March 11, 2000 when Kaci and I first met at the Marin Headlands
Hostel. A few other staff members
already had the pleasure of meeting our new employee. “Maaaaan,” Sabine said. “She’s totally
your type.” Sabine was right. It was October 31, 2000 when Kaci and I
were married at the Marin Headlands Hostel.
After three weeks of working and hanging out together, it was she who
popped the question. We hadn’t even held hands or kissed, let alone gone on a
date. We did check in that one
elementary school group together, and I guess we did spend a lot of time folding
the hostel laundry together, but I didn’t think of either of those as too
romantic.
But sitting in the kitchen,
just back from a late evening stroll along Rodeo Beach, there it was: “Will you marry me?” Naturally, I said yes. The next day I bought her a ring at the
Salvation Army store in San Rafael.
I wasn’t sure how seriously she took her own proposal, though. My doubts probably stem from her
continually telling me “I don’t want to be in a relationship!” So I guess I didn’t consider us
truly “engaged.”
But sometime in late May or
early June, after discussions on international politics and the rotation of the
earth relative to the moon and also the socks of soccer players, we got around
to discussing what our respective ideal weddings would be like.
The ideas rolled out. And it turned out we pretty much had the
same ideas: Ceremony in a natural setting, like on a hill or in a forest. Or on a beach. Reception not in a fancy hotel or old
VFW hall, but at our own home. No
caterers or waiters in black-tie, but family-style dinner, serve yourself. Maybe on a holiday like Halloween, with
a costume party reception.
It was sometime during that conversation-I’m not exactly sure when it
happened-we moved from discussing our ideal ceremony and reception…to planning
it.
“Well, is the hostel available on Halloween? What day of the week is that
anyway?”
“That’s a Tuesday. And it looks like there’s plenty of
space for our families and friends.”
Leading up to the big day were several months of non-stop organizing,
figuring, arranging, designing, and coordinating, all to insure ours would be a
fine example of “how to do it on a budget.” We created our own invitations and
painted the envelopes. We asked
people to RSVP by e-mail or phone, saving space in the invite where the SASE
usually goes. Our photographer was
a simple request to our friends: “Please give us your doubles” (and they
did-hundreds of them). Instead of
renting a supply of wine glasses, we decorated jelly and pasta sauce jars we had
saved from the hostel recycle bin.
A friend of a friend took care of cooking and creating in the
kitchen. My brother Bob burned a
number of CDs which supplied our wedding music.
We had booked space at the
hostel for our families and friends, most of whom arrived on Saturday for the
Tuesday ceremony. Spending 4 nights
together, instead of the usual few hours you find at most weddings, allowed
everyone to get to know each other.
It was cute having her family staying in a room next to my family (well,
cute until Kaci’s family kept my parents awake by jumping around and shouting-a
hostel no-no, by the way).
The days together also
allowed everyone to get to know what had been our home, the Marin
Headlands. People were able to
relax in the field in front of the hostel, go hiking through the hills or along
the lagoon, or learn more about the history of the area at the Visitor
Center. Others left the park and
toured Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz, Lombard Street, and Haight-Ashbury. I think a few even took off for an
afternoon in the Wine Country. One
friend took a group of us kayaking around the Sausalito
waterfront.
But most importantly, the
long weekend together allowed everyone to help us out! Despite all our planning, we still had
much to do in the way of food prep, road signs, decorating, beach set-up, and
more. Little did they all know that
coming out to San Francisco for four days, that we’d put them to
work.
The weekend progressed
pretty much as we had imagined back in May, but it wasn’t all sunshine and calla
lilies. After months of coaxing my
grandparents (whose idea of budget travel is staying at a Holiday Inn) that
they’d like the hostel, they walked in to find a stranger standing in their
bedroom. Soon after that was sorted
out, my grandfather, reeking of alcohol, took me aside to ask if I could wash
his underwear. I was afraid to hear
his reasons, but it turned out he had wrapped all his boxers around a bottle of
booze in his suitcase. And the
airline baggage handlers didn’t handle his baggage too gently. Fortunately, the boxers soaked most of
it up, so the rest of his suitcase was dry.
The night before the
ceremony, we wandered down to Rodeo Beach for a rehearsal. We had picked out a spot near a small
bridge, so my grandmother’s wheelchair could get across easily (and my
grandmother too). But upon showing
up, about 21 hours before the wedding, we found the entire area roped off with
ugly orange fencing-the bridge was under construction. But after three days of off-and-on rain,
everyone was more worried about the weather. All they could say was “What are you
going to do if it rains?” But Kaci
and I didn’t bother making a back-up plan.
As far as we were concerned, it wasn’t going to rain on our
parade.
Part Two. By
Kaci.
Finally the day arrived. And
it was nothing but sunshine and clear blue skies. A number of people were curious to see
if the ceremony would actually start at the time indicated on the
invitation. It did. At precisely 3:33pm, five of our friends
began singing, strumming and beating on a small bongo while the guests found
their seats atop blankets on the sand of Rodeo Beach. As Jen, Fo, Tanya, Elyce
and Heather sang a round of, “I sit by the ocean, watching waves roll onto the
shore”, by my favorite artist, Joules Graves, we gathered with our families on
either side of a petite iceplant-covered mound between the duck-shrouded pond
and gull-inhabited ocean. Ry’s family squeezed and hugged and cried, while mine
figured that playfully pushing me up the mound and cheering as I left their
circle would throw some humor into the lot.
Ry blew his nose, dramatically of course, as I slipped off my sandals and
adjusted the silk train that was being hemmed at 2 am that morning. It never did
get finished, so mom had to safety pin it to the back of my dress. Perfect. Ryan
and I met in the middle, two feet apart and crowned by Reverend Ruth, a gorgeous
crone woman with wavy silver hair, magnificent round glasses and a backpack at
her feet. “We give thanks to the East,” she began, and turned to thank and
welcome the four directions to begin the ceremony.
Our manager, Mike Byrnes,
had come across Reverend Ruth’s card at the Yoga Studio in downtown Sausalito.
The card came in handy threes weeks before the wedding when our Superheroes had
procrastinated finding a most important element of the service- the minister!
Luck swept into sight yet again. The first reverend we met was the Reverend for
us. She encouraged us to write as much of the ceremony as we needed to, which
for Ry and I became a green light for creativity. His younger brother, Dan, gave
the opening invocation and invoked a lot of God, a lot of love, and everything
in between. My oldest and only brother, Don, read a passage on “Marriage” from
The Prophet, by Kalil Gibran, which told us to fill each other’s cup, but
drink not from the same cup.
We exchanged rings. The groom’s ring came from my dad (who wore it for 25
years until he and my mom bought new rings for their anniversary), and the
bride’s ring came from Ryan’s grandmother (who handed it down to his mom).
Finally came the vows. At what other time can we, nebulous naïve creatures,
garbed in crisply ironed attire, sputter romantic professions and promises while
standing before a hundred family members and friends, who all happen to be
staring at us?
Among the guests were our co-workers at the hostel, past and present. But
if you have worked in a hostel, you know as well as we do that the word
"co-worker" trips and falls over your tongue when you're talking about people
you have worked, lived, played basketball, and shared cups of coffee with at
7:30 am. Out here in the Headlands, they are our family. Not the Waldens, and
not utopia, because then this little tale would be a boring pre-write of
reality. They are our family in the sense of space and sharing, of inevitable
bickering and a bit of complaining, pasta dinner parties, jamming on the
instruments, chess games, sheet-folding competitions, hikes in the park, Sartaj
Indian food, poetry night, group orientations, and the quest to fill our tummies
with the remains of Girl Scout Troop #419's supplies left on the Free Food
shelves. It isn't just the Pacific Ocean and cypress trees that prompt
hostellers to beg to stay beyond the 15 night limit. Many have grinned at the
comaraderie they witness within the office and gently remind us how lucky we are
to be in this place.
Back to the wedding. We kissed! And Grandma Marion watched through a pair
of binoculars from her perch in the parking lot (we never did figure a way to
get her wheelchair across the sand!). Everyone straggled back to the hostel and
changed into costumes, or were led to the official Costume Room in the basement,
beyond the Coke machine and pool tables, which was filled with thrift store
clothes, make-up and masks for anyone who dared proclaimed, "But I don't have a
costume!" There would be no excuses at this reception, well, except for Grandma
Marian and Grandpa Doc.
In the common areas of Building 941 the reception was held. Jason our
caterer had taken over the kitchen that morning with family volunteers working
as caterer assistants. The decorated mason jars perched in the hallway, couches
were ready for sitting, and six long tables held up pumpkins and assorted gourds
from Full Belly organic farm, where our "co-worker" Kim lived before coming to
the hostel.
Brittany Spears may have been the first to arrive. "Oops! I did it
again!" she squealed, catching her heel on a spider web. In her footsteps
followed a handful of drag queens, the Tooth Fairy Family--King, Queen and the
Fairy herself, a devil and her She/he sidekick (Ry's folks), nerds (my parents),
a priest, butterfly, Little Red Riding Hood, Mimi from the Drew Carey show and
her bum of a husband (my grandparents), a Cheese head, flapper, sea kelp,
popcorn, and Doc and Marian. Two hours of toasts, a mother/son, father/daughter,
father-in-law/daughter-in-law, mother-in-law/son-in-law, groom/bride dance, with
DJ Bob Forsythe, Jr.at the helm! I didn't witness this act, but rumors recount
my dad and brother skipping towards the ocean singing fabulous 70s rock hits. No
wonder that when our midnight call to the honeymoon suite at last arrived, my
new hubbie and I trooped over to Kirby Cove campsite, rolled out some sleeping
bags on the ground, gawked in the direction of the Red Carpet bridge and her
luminous city in the background, and promptly passed out from
exhaustion.
Into our memories came this merry, magical Halloween.
© 2001 ryan@forsythe.to