Isha and I got married in a sweet, simple, co-created celebration at Mt Tabor in late September!
Three weeks ago today I married the love of my life in a sweet, simple, co-created celebration at the Mt Tabor Ampitheater here in Portland, OR. I first met Isha because he showed up on my doorstep when he came on a tour of Simply Home Community, the tiny cohousing community where I was living in my vardo, The Lucky Penny. The tiny house next door to mine was for rent and he was interested in downsizing from his 300 SF condo to a tiny house, so he soon became The Guy Next Door.
The past two and a half years have been a splendid whirlwind of adventures together. There were a few bigger adventures (like our nine days of Hawaiian Time) and a smattering of trips to visit friends and family and attend weddings. (So many weddings and so much inspiration for ours!) Amidst the trips, most of our adventures have been of the good little life variety: breakfasts on the tiny house porch, weekend afternoons planting, tending, and harvesting at the community garden, rainy mornings at our favorite local bakery, etc.
But we've also had several major milestones in two and a half years: Together we designed and built our tiny house, T42. We bought a property in the Cully neighborhood of Portland which we've turned into a tiny house community called Going Places. And we planned and manifested an awesome wedding! (I realize one of the reasons I hadn't been Journaling Outloud recently is that my attention was going to wedding planning!)
My new father-in-law snapped this pic of the two of us on our special day!
There's a saying "Build a house, lose a spouse," but we'd already passed that test by designing and building our tiny house together, so wedding planning was relatively smooth sailing for us. Part of it was that when we were doing our wedding planning on our pre-moon in Mexico in February we used A Practical Guide to Wedding Planning, which encouraged us to create a wedding mission statement. We thought of all the feels we wanted to have at our wedding and then identified the guiding principles for us. Every time we got off-track we were able to reel each other back in by asking it it was sweet, simple, and co-created. (As our day-of-coordinator, who is also one of my best friends, can attest because she's seen the spreadsheets, we may not have succeeded on "simple," but it was definitely intentional. See Simple Living vs Intentional Living for more on that lesson learned!)
We started our wedding day with a picnic breakfast packed by one of our lovely community mates at Going Places. Breakfasts together was one of the first things Isha and I did since we're both early risers so that was a nice way to get grounded. Friends started showing up to help so we went to get ready. When we returned our family had gathered for family photos. We did a few first sight photos (I hope I never forget how smitten I felt when I saw him all ready for our wedding or the look on his face when he first saw me in my wedding dress which I'd managed to keep a surprise for him!) and then family photos.
What an incredible family we have! This is our joint shot with our new entire extended family and we're so delighted they came to celebrate with us!
Everyone participated in the processional, which was one of my favorite parts. Isha's folks lined up in one line and mine in another, with him at the end of his line and me at the end of mine. When our live band Cascade Crossing started playing the Montague Processional my auntie and his mom lead the processional lines to the stage and everyone high-fived each other as they passed. That left Isha and I on stage at the end of the processional with our officiant, Eliana. The three of us had created the ceremony together over many cups of tea and it was just right for us. It incorporated blessings from our siblings and our officiant, our joint recitation of our vows (which are written on the incredibly beautiful katubah made by our friend Jeanne of Calligraphica), an exchange of rings, and a pronouncement of our marriage. After our receiving line we had a yuchid which was a perfect chance to have a private celebration of our marriage and let the moment sink in.
Our beautiful katubah, created by our friend Jeanne of Calligraphica now occupies its special spot on our wall in T42!
From there on out it was a delicious potluck (a tribute to my parents who had a potluck picnic in the park for their wedding), contra dancing, dessert, and more dancing. We wrapped up with an after-party at McMenamin's since we knew some our friends wouldn't want the party to end.
It was important to us to have co-creation be a part of our special day because we've loved pitching in to help other people's weddings be an awesome success. We love the barn raising feel of that many-hands-make-light-work approach and wanted to both offer that opportunity to our friends and family and have their help to create our special day. When we tallied it up, we realized we had over 70 people help out in some way to make our day magical!
What a joyous day! We're so grateful to everyone who celebrated with us and helped launch us into the greatest adventure yet!