Summary
Weddings are a special time in the Amish culture, and this one was a very special wedding.
The cool mornings haze hung in the low, sweeping valley, kissing everything animate and inanimate with millions of moist droplets. The sun, just now slipping above the distant hillsides, began to undo the dew.
An Amish church bench wagon stood alone, a silvery silent phantom in the dampened alfalfa field. A week earlier the wagon likely went unnoticed. It had been brought there to supply some of the seating for the hundreds of guests who attended a very special wedding.
The bride, a good friend and neighbor, was the happiest, most excited young woman about to be married that I had ever met. Only a year earlier this same 34 year-old had adamantly proclaimed to my wife that she would never get married.
Life events change things above and beyond our poor power to anticipate or comprehend them. We can only accept them.
Months earlier, the groom was suddenly a young widower with six children, teenager to toddlers. When the life of a wife and mother is taken at 34, a huge, horrible hole is created. Now, through a series of remarkable if not miraculous happenings, the modest, stalwart man was about to take a new bride.
Step by step, it all came together. And now the day was at hand. Normally, an outbuilding, barn or shop is used to hold the three-hour ceremony, which is considered a worship service, and includes singing and preaching.
It clearly was a bittersweet wedding. In fact, the bride used that as the theme in the invitations, throughout the preparations, and the wedding and reception, too. She went out of her way to include the children and their grandparents in this emotional transition.
If ever there was a model for the positive blending of families, this wedding was it. There were tears of joy for the new couple, for the young children who would once again have a mother, and for the new groom, who would no longer have to worry about how to care for his family while holding down a fulltime job.
Even the minister had to wipe away a tear or two as he preached his sermon in his native Pennsylvania Dutch. During his animated sermon, he spoke reverently to the children, all dressed in matching gold shirts and dresses. He shared personally and passionately with the bride and groom on the incomparable commitment they were making.
In the Amish community, weddings and the meal that follows are a crowning celebration. They are a commitment for a lifetime to each other and the community. Surrounded by hundreds of family and friends, my friend followed her heart, and filled another familys aching emptiness.
The reception was held across the narrow township road from the brides parents home. A large white tent had been erected to accommodate the reception goers. At the reception, the wedding party usually sits in the eck, or corner, while the guests enjoy their meal at long decorated tables. This was no ordinary Amish wedding.
The guests were afforded a glimpse of how life would be in this newly established household. Amish weddings are mostly held in late spring after the planting of crops has been completed or in the fall, after the harvest. Guests are seated and served family style, often chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, a vegetable, and a beverage with cake for dessert.
This wedding was different here, too. The guests helped themselves buffet style to the food and then found their own seats inside the tent, along with another surprise. Centered at the back of the tent was a huge, antique dining room table. Around it sat the bride, the groom and his six children. The bride fed one toddler while the groom fed another.
This marvelous couple had only been married a few minutes, and already they were modeling the Amish family way. I had to wipe away a few tears of my own.
Just as the joy of this marriage warmed the spirits of the wedding guests, the strengthening sun quickly melted away the dewdrops around the church wagon. It was an honor and a blessing to have witnessed both.
