oregon trip

I was in Oregon this past week at a wedding for my friend & mentor, Anna. It was a lovely wedding & in a wonderful location (waterfalls all around, old growth forests.)

We (the bridesmaids & a couple other friends) were all out there for four days, staying at this lodge together and preparing for the wedding. And boy did we prepare: we transformed a bare rotunda into a beautiful chapel, created orders of service and music lists, arranged flowers, moved and decorated tables, hung curtains and Christmas lights everywhere...we were busy pretty much the whole time!

I've never been to a wedding quite like that, before--where the wedding party is all there for so long. Most of the weddings I've been in have been wonderful, but they've also been really quick--rush in the day before the wedding, have a rehearsal, shower of some sort and then watch your friend get married the next day before leaving yourself! Of course, this makes perfect sense--it's really hard to get time off for a several day event. But, everyone took the time off for this wedding & there was something really significant about that. Almost none of us had ever met each other before & none of us had met the groom. It felt sort of sacred--everybody coming together around this friend & trying to intentionally figure out ways that we'll support her as she moves forward with a new, and somewhat unknown, life.

I'm not sure I've ever been in a situation like this before, where all the parts of someone's life come together in quite the same way. It's made me think a lot about community--or the potential for community.