Love is patient and wears spring colors

The first week of June, Kristin and I marked our 38th anniversary. We celebrated the day while attending the wedding of a niece at one of those fancy, barn-turned-event-center locations in the western part of the state.

Our own wedding, consistent with the times, had been a big deal with a whole mess of bridesmaids and groomsmen, a flower girl in a princess dress, a little ring bearer in a tiny tuxedo — even the ushers wore matching three-piece ensembles. Our reception was held in a gymnasium, not because the crowd was so enormous that we couldn’t have easily fit in the back room of the VFW; the gym was cheaper, proof that even in our most historic moments, we’ve held true to our cheapskate upbringings.

In the late 1980s, Kristin and I were locked in a tight rotation of weddings. Siblings, friends, cousins and coworkers; everyone we ran with seemed to be getting married. Each one of those weddings seemed to require a bridal party large enough to fill a Byzantine banquet table. By the time we’d made it to our 30s, we’d spent so much on single-use bridesmaid’s dresses and rented tuxedos with matching shiny shoes we could’ve financed an entire second ceremony for ourselves.

The wedding of our niece was a similarly fancy affair, beginning with an invitation envelope that held no fewer than five sheets of paper. One of those sheets held explicit instructions for which I was infinitely grateful: “The ceremony begins promptly at 4 p.m., and we ask that guests start arriving at 3 p.m. and are seated by 3:45.” No more guessing how early was too early or how late would be too late. It was a very polite way of saying, “Butts in chairs by this moment, or else!”

The other helpful instruction was with regard to clothing. “We ask that our guests wear semi-formal attire, preferably in spring colors.”

While at first bristling at the thought that I might not know how to dress myself for such an occasion, I was actually relieved that someone had found a perfectly diplomatic way of making sure that I did. Kristin had to fill me in on exactly what was meant by “spring colors” as my mind went directly to John Deere green and daffodil yellow.

“They’re looking for pastels here, John,” she said. “And by the way, I’m going to need a new dress.”

And so it was that promptly at 3:45, on a sun-soaked June afternoon exactly 38 years and one day after our own nuptials, we gathered on white folding chairs alongside dozens of other pastel-garbed guests in the shade puddle of a repurposed forage silo. The bride and groom, resplendent in their love, joy and beauty, stood in the sun, buffeted by 40 mph gusts carrying remnants of last year’s corn crop, as they spoke their vows — a fitting and metaphorical beginning.

My own bride, glowing in her brand-new dress, held hands with a hairy-eared old guy in a mint green button-down and a pair of Dockers he’d bought straight off the rack at Goodwill. The circle of life was renewed in all its beautiful glory.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.