This Page

has been moved to new address

letting go of the wedding

Sorry for inconvenience...

Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration Service
/* Primary layout */ body { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; text-align: left; color: #554; background: #692 url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/outerwrap.gif) top center repeat-y; font: Trebuchet;serif } img { border: 0; display: block; } /* Wrapper */ #wrapper { margin: 0 auto; padding: 0; border: 0; width: 692px; text-align: seft; background: #fff url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/innerwrap.gif) top right repeat-y; font-size:80%; } /* Header */ #blog-header { color: #ffe; background: #8b2 url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/headbotborder.gif) bottom left repeat-x; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0 0 15px 0; border: 0; } #blog-header h1 { font-size: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 15px 20px 0 20px; margin: 0; background-image: url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/topper.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: top left; } #blog-header p { font-size: 110%; text-align: left; padding: 3px 20px 10px 20px; margin: 0; line-height:140%; } /* Inner layout */ #content { padding: 0 20px; } #main { width: 400px; float: left; } #sidebar { width: 226px; float: right; } /* Bottom layout */ Blogroll Me! #footer { clear: left; margin: 0; padding: 0 20px; border: 0; text-align: left; border-top: 1px solid #f9f9f9; background-color: #fdfdfd; } #footer p { text-align: left; margin: 0; padding: 10px 0; font-size: x-small; background-color: transparent; color: #999; } /* Default links */ a:link, a:visited { font-weight : bold; text-decoration : none; color: #692; background: transparent; } a:hover { font-weight : bold; text-decoration : underline; color: #8b2; background: transparent; } a:active { font-weight : bold; text-decoration : none; color: #692; background: transparent; } /* Typography */ #main p, #sidebar p { line-height: 140%; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 1em; } .post-body { line-height: 140%; } h2, h3, h4, h5 { margin: 25px 0 0 0; padding: 0; } h2 { font-size: large; } h3.post-title { margin-top: 5px; font-size: medium; } ul { margin: 0 0 25px 0; } li { line-height: 160%; } #sidebar ul { padding-left: 10px; padding-top: 3px; } #sidebar ul li { list-style: disc url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/diamond.gif) inside; vertical-align: top; padding: 0; margin: 0; } dl.profile-datablock { margin: 3px 0 5px 0; } dl.profile-datablock dd { line-height: 140%; } .profile-img {display:inline;} .profile-img img { float:left; margin:0 10px 5px 0; border:4px solid #8b2; } #comments { border: 0; border-top: 1px dashed #eed; margin: 10px 0 0 0; padding: 0; } #comments h3 { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: -10px; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 1px; } #comments dl dt { font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; margin-top: 35px; padding: 1px 0 0 18px; background: transparent url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/commentbug.gif) top left no-repeat; color: #998; } #comments dl dd { padding: 0; margin: 0; } .deleted-comment { font-style:italic; color:gray; } .comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

greenbanner

07 August 2007

letting go of the wedding

flower petals at nicole's wedding

I can’t seem to let go.

Oh sure, I seem really good at it. Go gluten-free after a lifetime of being the bestest friend in the world of bread? I used to walk to Macrina Bakery every afternoon, after school, to sample ham and cheese biscuits or thick molasses cookies or these apple tartlets that inspired me to write letters to friends in far-away places with apple-cinnamon-sugar drops on the blue paper. Every day, I went to that little bakery on the hill that smelled of sugar goodness. Go gluten-free? Of course. No problem. After all, I had been so sick, it made sense.

This has been a year of enormous change. Within one year (and three months), I met the love of my life – and knew it fairly immediately – signed with a literary agent, asked the love to move in, proposed to each other, got a book deal, lost my job, wrote a book, discovered more new foods than I had ever eaten, learned how to be a full-time writer, started teaching cooking classes, wrote my first freelance pieces, tried to learn how to market a book, had articles written about me in newspapers, moved to a new home, and got married. And that’s just the big changes. Most people are afraid of change. I just didn’t have time for fear. I said yes. I embrace life.

Or so they say.

Change the venue of our wedding two weeks before the day we had been planning for a year? You bet. We saved money, it felt right, and life just started leaning that way. Did it mean a lot of work, a complete shift in the images I had been forming in my head for months? Yes. Did our wedding turn out to be utterly different than I had ever imagined? Of course. But letting go of one place for our own backyard allows me to sit meditation on the spot where I said my love out loud, in front of a gathered crowd, to this man. Letting go worked out that time.

But the thing is? It took me until I was nearly thirty years old until I finally threw out my wardrobe from the seventh grade. And I didn’t even like those clothes. Photographs of me, with my enormous orange-rimmed glasses, and the high-collared polyester dresses, make me look like a middle-aged librarian. I look younger now in my forties than I did at twelve. (And this after the Albert Brooks phase.) Why did I keep all those clothes? I don’t know. Why do I still have all the journals I kept when I was sixteen and twenty and even thirty-two? Even though I peek inside one, once in a while, just to see what I was doing on this day, a decade ago, and I shudder to see the stumbling phrases. Sometimes, I am amazed at my former self’s capacity to wrestle an idea to the ground (over the span of twenty pages) like a dog with a bone. My god, I didn’t know how to let anything go, until I was well into my thirties.

There’s a reason I sit meditation on that spot in our backyard every day.

I always remember this line in Catcher in the Rye, when Holden accuses his roommate Stradlater of being “...a secret slob.” He looks neat on the outside, but his razor is all crumby with unwashed hairs. I’m not a secret slob (take a look at the state of our kitchen right now, and you would know it’s not a secret at all). But it seems, sometimes, I’m a secret clinger.

You see, I can’t seem to let go of our wedding.

Writing this enormous set of stories was a wonderful catharsis. Looking at the photographs, nearly every day, has been a wonderful release. Last week was the Chef’s birthday. For his present, I developed several dozen of our favorite images, our hands with the rings, the nieces and nephews, both sets of parents, the two of us laughing, and many more. And then I hung them up in the living room. When he returned home from the restaurant that night, he stood in front of those photos and cried.

It was such a beautiful day, you see.

Certainly, life goes on around here. Bills to be paid, pieces to be written, and always the dishes to be done. The Chef has started a new menu at the restaurant, as part of a three-month tour of the Tastes of the African Continent. One taste of the zatar-roasted leg of lamb or the coconut crème brulee, and you will never again decry having to live a gluten-free life. I have writing to do, and more last-minute proofreading of the book. (Always, there seems to be one more page to be checked.) A thousand details rush through my mind, and only a few of them are laid to rest at the end of each day.

We’re busy around here.

But still, I keep writing about the wedding.

caprese salad at molly's wedding

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve attended two other weddings in the last two weekends. I go years without sitting on a white chair, wiping away the tears from my eyes as two people declare their love for each other. But this summer, it has been wedding central.

Two weeks after our wedding, Molly and Brandon married each other. Actually, that’s not quite true. I was the person who married them. I felt more honored than words could convey that these two people I love asked me to stand before them and pronounce them husband and wife. (In case you’re wondering, I’m a Minister of the Internet, a preacher of life.) As I stood next to Brandon, under the tent, the sea behind us, and watched Molly walk down the aisle toward him, I grew more teary than I had at my own wedding. I looked over at the Chef, in the third aisle back, wearing his sky-blue shirt. We winked at each other. We were already married.

Of course, I could tell you so many details about Molly and Brandon’s wedding, of the lovely weekend in Bellingham. But that is her story. And I will let her tell it. Suffice it to say there were glasses of sparkling wine, jars of pickled carrots, hanging flowers in mason jars, fresh caprese salads, and a special plate of appetizers set aside for me. Gluten-free. Mostly, there was a beautiful bride, and an ebullient groom, and the loving people thronged around them to watch their first dance.

they dance at their wedding

This past weekend, I drove up to Bellingham again for Nicole’s wedding. (Weddings mean serious miles on the car this summer.) I first met Nicole when she was fourteen years old. It was my first year of teaching. Or, to be more accurate, it was two days before the beginning of my first year of teaching. I was putting up postcards on the wall near the light switch when this kid came in. This fresh-faced, dancing eyes, mouth-full-of-braces kid. She said, “Are you the new teacher?” with so much enthusiasm that I immediately felt grateful. Oh, it is going to work, I thought. I loved her immediately.

After she graduated, and was no longer my student, we started being friends. Now, she is nearly thirty years old, and a married woman.

Their wedding took place in one of the more beautiful settings I have ever experienced. Every person there knew the bride and groom well. No distant relations or business acquaintances. Simply a community of people who loved them. It was the kind of wedding where an old family friend stands up to sing a John Denver song, a capella, and everyone sings softly along, their voices echoing off the hills filled with trees.

And when they stood in front of a Buddha statue, and said open-hearted vows to each other, I cried again.

millet salad at nicole's wedding

It was also another wedding where I was able to eat successfully, and safely. Nicole and David had a potluck too (I think inspired by our original planning), and had little cards in front of each dish, with the ingredients listed. Such a joy. The millet salad with edible flowers was enough to make me swoon.

And they had even purchased a gluten-free cake for me, from the Bellingham Co-Op. Now that’s love. (Of course, there were other people who needed the cake as well. The awareness of this need seems to grow every day.)
.
And so, you see, I have been swathed in weddings, basking in the festivities of first toasts and slow dances, meaningful glances between bride and groom and a joyful throng of people wanting to dance along.

No wonder it has been hard to move on from our wedding.

And I can’t stop giggling when I introduce him: “This is my husband….”

But all things must come to an end, eventually. I find myself not writing here, because I just want to write about the wedding, and there is only so much that you poor people can take. Or I want to look at the set of photographs that Shuna took of our big day. On Sunday, my family came over for a day-early birthday celebration. My brother took one look at the wall of photos and said, “It seems you’ve been busy documenting the wedding.” Really, I have to stop.

After all, I have a honeymoon to finish planning.

the Buddha and the heart stone

But of course, I don't really mean that I want to let go of the wedding. Thinking about it? That will go on my entire life. Our entire lives together. We still look at photographs every night, when the Chef is home from the restaurant. The wedding, the feeling, the love and laughter -- those are still with me every day. I intend to keep every moment of it alive, in the way I love him.

But I want to put a cap on the public writing about, here, on this site. With all the posts before the wedding happened, I was still writing about the wedding. It feels like enough to me now.

I'll never be able to stop talking about how much I love him.

But we miss so much when we think exclusively about what happened in the past.

There's this gorgeous sunlight out my window right now, or the taste of the soy milk I had for a snack, the possibility soon of simply sitting on the porch and reading a magazine. I want to write about that. There are so many other moments, perhaps more mundane, that I would love to write, now. I feel like -- in writing alone -- I am a little backed up. There was the afternoon that Elliott was in our backyard and laughed so hard about the bubbles he made that we all started laughing. Or the summer creative writing camp I started teaching on Monday, with days full of stories and teenagers who are characters. I've made up corn puddings and apricot crisps and quinoa salads, and I want to share them with everyone.

I want to go back to the food.

And at some point, I have to answer my email!

So it seems to me that the best way to move on is to bow in gratitude, and thank the people who helped make our wedding what it was. (That way, if you are having a wedding in Seattle sometime in the future, you will know whom to thank as well.)

To Monica Frisell, who drove across the country with her Belgian friend with a mohawk to attend our wedding. She took brilliant photos with my Nikon (how weird it was to not have it in my hands, but I trusted her hands) and shoot many more with her Leica. We are blessed to know her. Monica, we have come a long way from the Sprinkler room at Northwest, idly vacuuming and talking about New York. Now you’re living there, and taking photographs full-time.

To Mark Eskenazai, who not only brought over his dj equipment and set it up on our back porch, but also took photographs, spontaneously. He’s a great photographer. Give him a call. Or, stop by Sosio’s, our favorite produce stand at Pike Place Market, and buy some peaches from him.

To Daniel, who provided all those beautiful flowers, even with his difficult decision.

To Coleen and Joe, who played so beautifully, and made “True Companion” their own song, enough so that I heard it new as I walked down the aisle.

To Francoise, Tita, Kathy, and Andy, for their stories, their companionable silences, and their love spoken aloud.

To the women at Champagne Taste, who sold me the wedding dress, and the meticulous women at Superb Custom Tailorswho doctored it up for me.

To Kaytlyn Sanders, who re-designed this website, designed our Save the Date cards and our wedding invitations, and gave us the food allergy cards for the potluck. All with a sweet smile and a warm chuckle. Kaytlyn, the next coffee at Fiorre is on me.

To the people at Alexander Party Rentals, who calmed a panicked-bride-to-be when she called and said, “We’re moving the wedding site. We need enough tables and chairs for everyone, in two weeks. Help!”

To Kathy at Ener-G Foods, who sweetly emailed early congratulations for the wedding, and wondered if we would need gluten-free crackers and pretzels for the party. Oh boy, did we. Everyone loved them. I'm munching on some as I type this.

To Don and Michelle, who roasted the lamb, brought it to our house in chafing dishes, piled more food onto the table that left people near tears with the taste, and stood in the receiving line to hug us. Don, your tears made us cry, and made us realize the day more fully.

To Kristin, who provided the boots.

To Sharon, Dana, Cindy, and Merida, the best bridesmaids I could have ever had (mostly because they understood I didn’t want them to do anything but stand by my side).

To Patti who started the “Worshipping the Shoes” dance.

To all you readers who sent us presents. My goodness, thank you.

To all the people who were in our backyard. Every time we sit outside now, we think of you, with us. Every day.

To our parents, who made it all possible by giving birth to us.

To the Chef, for marrying me, for loving me, for standing by my side.


I bow to you all.


There. That has to be it, for now.


Onward, onto the life beyond the wedding.


heart stone in the Buddha's hands


(Whew. Turns out that happened much faster than throwing out those rope-wedge heels from 1978. I guess now, at 41 - just turned yesterday - I am finally growing up.)

35 Comments:

At 11:23 PM, Blogger Joey Robinson said...

Thank you again, dear Shauna! It was so lovely to be part of it all. I have to say, after my own wedding celebration, every wedding I have attended afterwards has made me cry much more deeply. I never understood why until I had gone through it myself.

Yes, we need to meet up soon, as I miss our memorable meetings at Fioré. Hugs to you both!

 
At 11:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's no wonder you want to hang on to the wedding; it was a beautiful, joyful, uproarious, glorious day. Couples who go on their honeymoon immediately after their wedding have that time together to focus on each other, to relive their wedding day and to dream and plan for their marriage. No one expects them to do otherwise. You and Dan haven't gone on your honeymoon, but You. Just. Got. Married! Why write about anything else until you really want to?

Happy belated birthday, dear Shauna. May this next year bring you much joy (and maybe a little less change than the last one).

 
At 2:50 AM, Blogger David said...

I hope you didn't really toss those orange glasses.

Although they perhaps didn't go with your wedding dress, they sound pretty cool...

xox

 
At 4:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with Kimberly - don't let go of it, don't stop writing about it. We got married nearly 12 weeks ago and it's still the main thing I think about. When we are sitting on the sofa together my husband and I still talk about it every day. Keep it fresh in your mind as long as possible, don't pack it away in a box in your mind, keep it out there to look at every time you pass, give it a smile and a little squeeze. One day you'll move on with your book or whatever comes next, but for the time being, let it be, enjoy it, revel in it and bask in it!

Like you guys, we haven't been on honeymoon yet. Not long now, just 2 and a half weeks. San Francisco lovin' here we come!

 
At 5:12 AM, Blogger ChupieandJ'smama (Janeen) said...

Happy belated birthday to you!!
It's so hard to let go of something that was such a big place in your life for so long. And when it is one of the most magical days of your life, that makes it even harder. Going on with daily life and obligations will start to make the "wedding" less of an entity in your life. Just lock all that love and joy in your heart. Don't let go completely. And remember you Just Got Married. It's ok to revel in it. And we as readers enjoy basking in the after glow of your big day. It's nice to read of love and happiness.

 
At 5:37 AM, Blogger Gemma said...

Happy birthday Shauna, I hope you had a wonderful day. I have a friend who became an internet minister to marry his brother in Chicago and friends here in the UK always think I am joking about it even being possible but I think it is lovely - who better to marry you than a person who knows and loves you.

 
At 6:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shauna,
Congratulations and happy birthday! What a beautiful story with lovely images. Thank you for sharing it with us. Enjoy your magical journey!
Namaste,
Melissa (from Colorado)

 
At 7:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not to alarm anyone, but have you seen this article about the possible illegality of internet-ordained ministers marrying their friends? Hope you and Molly thoroughly researched your local laws before the ceremony!

 
At 8:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course you can't let it go! This has been the main focus of your life, occupying most of your waking thoughts, for months on end. How could anyone be expected to shut the door at the end of the day, and say, "Done, I will think about this no more"? As soon as we were married, I was tempted to start planning the ceremony where we'd renew our vows. :)

As someone else wisely pointed out, most couples have a honeymoon immediately which is mostly devoted to reveling in one another and reliving the wedding. And even when they come home, there are wedding albums to go through, reminisce over, etc. It wouldn't just be silly to expect that you'd let it go quickly -- frankly, it'd be very sad if you did. This is a very sweet chapter of life. Enjoy it! Say yes. ;)

 
At 9:15 AM, Blogger Barbie said...

Happy Birthday, and thank you so much for touching so many lives with your eloquent stories of family, friends and food. I've been reading and cooking with you for a long while now, and living better because of it!

 
At 9:15 AM, Blogger Shauna said...

Kaytlyn,

Yes. Weddings are far more moving when you have been married. I'm so glad there aren't more this summer -- I would be a soppy mess!

Fiore is in our future, my dear.

Kimberly,

oh thank you. We loved having you and Paul there. And I must say, you (and the other people who have said it), you're right. There is something to be said for going on the honeymoon just after. Daily life happened far too fast for my taste. But then again, Italy in September...

David,

oh my friend, I'm afraid they were tossed, in a fit of pique, years ago, at having to wear such monstrosities. Now, they would be cool. but I'll tell you, if I still had them, they would be on their way to you in Paris right now.

VanessaC,

Congratulations! 12 weeks certainly seems like a reasonable time to still be talking about it!

I think I may have mis-represented myself here. There's NO way I'm ever going to forget the wedding. Or stop reminiscing with my love. But here, on this site. That's all I meant. And life keeps intruding on my reverie. At some point, I have to answer my email!

ChupieandJ'sMomma,

Oh yes. Thank you. The feeling of the day, the love, the glorious laughter, the people gathered around us -- that I don't let go. But I probably could put the whoopee cushions away...

Gemma,

I agree. I just loved being the person who married them. It felt like such an honor, and a passing of the torch. Molly and I planned together all year, so I was thrilled to be such a vital force in their wedding.

Melissa,

Namaste to you, my dear. So good to see you here, commenting!

Caroline,

Ack! What a crazy article. But no fears for Molly. Those two would never do anything without Molly making sure it is done right!

Deb,

Oh of course! Thinking about it? That will go on my entire life. Our entire lives together. We still look at photographs every night, when the Chef is home from the restaurant.

Maybe I feel some responsibility here, to offer up good recipes for gluten-free folks, and not reminisce about the wedding each time! Sigh.

But yes, you are right. It did just happen, after all. The last few weeks have been such a windstorm of book events and big projects and Things to Be Done that the wedding feels farther than three weeks.

But here, it's here. (she says, pointing to her heart.) There it will always be alive and dancing.

 
At 1:05 PM, Blogger Jodi said...

Happy Birthday Shauna!

I hope that you don't think that we want you to move on regarding the wedding. I know I love hearing your stories. Why are we as a culture in such a rush to put important thoughts and events behind us. "Move on" seems like a command from some awful control freaks. It seems kind of rushed if you ask me. I think you should be able to enjoy talking about anything you want. Your writing makes even the most mundane task seem important.
I had been holding out writing to you since the wedding. SO much to read, my comments seemed almost dull in comparison. Your wedding seemed perfect - it could not have been planned and been as wonderful. The Chef is one lucky guy, and you my dear are a very lucky woman.
Change takes time, do yourself a favor and don't be in such a rush to close this chapter.

 
At 5:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I can't seem to let go of our wedding"...

who told you you had to?

why do you think you need to?

why should you???

be happy, well and blessed dear Shauna and say YES to holding on to the good; not everything should be let go

 
At 5:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh, and hold on to those thoughts, memories and sensory perceptions; there may be moments far in the future that you will need fixate on the blessedness just to see you thorough: don't let go, hold strong and steady and allow the holding on of the good to a welcome part of you

just my thought

 
At 5:24 PM, Blogger Shauna said...

Artist without a Muse,

What a wonderful name! Thank you for your comments. That sent me into the day with a big grin on my face.

jodi and mare,

oh heavens, thank you.

But all I really meant here is that there are so many other moments, perhaps more mundane, that I would love to write. I feel like -- in writing alone -- I am a little backed up! There was the afternoon that Elliott was in our backyard and laughed so hard about the bubbles he made that we all started laughing. Or the summer creative writing camp i started teaching on Monday, with days full of stories and teenagers who are characters. i've made up corn puddings and apricot crisps and quinoa salads, and i want to share them with everyone. But somehow, in my mind, I hadn't finished writing about the wedding yet. And saying thank you. In a way, this was a clearing piece.

I had no idea it would inspire such fervent feelings!

The wedding, the feeling, the love and laughter -- those are still with me every day. And the entire weekend feels different, slightly, every day. i love to talk about it with my love.

But I did want to put a cap on it in the public writing. With all the posts before the wedding happened, I was still somehow writing about the wedding. It has felt long enough to me now.

I'll never be able to stop talking about how much I love him.

BUt we miss so much when we think exclusively about what happened in the past. there's this gorgeous sunlight out my window right now, or the taste of the soy milk i had for a snack, the possibility soon of simply sitting on the porch and reading a magazine. i want to write about that.

That's all.

Thanks for your concern. But truly, believe me - we're not in a rush to let go of what is ours. just the public part of it, really.

 
At 5:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Then all is well.

Now, about Elliot and them apricots...

:-)

 
At 5:33 PM, Blogger Rachael Narins said...

Personally, I could listen to you talk about it forever.

But doll...didn't anyone point out the NYTimes article last week..."Nice Wedding, But Was it Legal?" I sure hope Molly and Brandon saw it! Yikes. It points out that some states don't recognize online ministers officiating weddings.

But back to you...a thousand congrats and more. Happy Birthday too...

Xoxox
Rachael

 
At 6:28 AM, Blogger Sandra Love Nichol said...

Don't throw out your journals, please! From one writer to another. Trust me.

 
At 6:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A follow-up comment!

Okay okay, I get your point. The girls that I share an office with are never hearing about my wedding again. Actually after a while it's nice to keep it to yourself, like your own little secret. Even though it's not a secret at all, and your closest friends have shared it with you, but it's like a little ember that you can keep burning inside yourselves. It will keep you nice and toasty warm (g-f toast of course), and that smile will stay on your face!

I have loved reading about your wedding, especially while planning and celebrating mine, and don't want you to stop writing about it because it feels like moving on in the negative sense. But let's think about honeymoons now, and romantic lives as newly-weds, and yes, those mundane things that are still fascinating in their ordinariness. Everything and nothing has changed, and that's the fascination of our lives as we grow and develop and mature.

Here's to the present and the future, and life!

 
At 8:12 AM, Blogger Nina said...

I've loved reading about your wedding -- and I don't even know you. Really, I came for GF recipes, but feel I have been gifted with so much more by visiting! I turn 45 next month and still have not grown up. But if I ever do grow up, I hope I turn out to be a lot like you! And CONGRATULATIONS!

 
At 8:14 AM, Blogger Jodi said...

Hi Again Shauna,
Well, then let's move on! Ha! I really fell in love with the pictures of the boys from the wedding.
I am all ears about your recipes and the lady in the parked car and the kids down the block and the apple trees that you and the Chef will find in your travels and the beautiful pictures you are going to post and the taste of something sweet or savory as it trickles down your chin or plops on the plate beneath. Talk to me, tell me everything, And on occasion, drop in another memory of the wedding. (thanks for being kind and understanding about our passion for your passion.)
You are so appreciated.

 
At 3:47 PM, Blogger Abby said...

You would not have any complaints from me if you continued to blog about your beautiful day! I enjoy your eloquent, witty writing style and the scrumptious pictures of the food (okay, I promise I'm not trying to make your head swell--I just really enjoy your blog).

How I wish my hubby & I could visit Impromptu to sample the taste of the African Continent menu. Might there be any Ethiopian inspired dishes offered? Hubby & I (and our daughters) are in the process of adopting 2 little boys from Ethiopia. When I Googled the phrase "gluten-free injera", one of the first selections was to your blog, a post written in 2005. With your (and the chef's) permission, can I link to that post & Impromtu's web address in the future?

Thanks,
Abby

 
At 4:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Beautiful Shauna- you are processing. And you will keep processing. The wedding and all it's magnificent moments will become an ingredient in your life's recipe. You and Danny will carry this special ingredient with you like some sacred saffron threads. You will weave it into all that you do from now on. And the beauty of it all is that you will never know what it is exactly that you are creating. Don't apologize. Just add new things into the mix, and know that what you have experienced will show up again and again- in dreams, in writing, in living. Keep marrying Danny, your work, and yourself.

 
At 5:25 PM, Blogger Calli said...

Happy Birthday! Mine is in nine days - and then my one year wedding anniversary exactly two weeks later. I remember telling you about it while you were planning yours... and well, here we are, a couple of married girls.

It's so lovely, isn't it?

 
At 4:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shauna! I found your blog via a friends posting on her blog that lead me to one other and then yours. I enjoyed reading about your wedding. Interesting for me is that you also have celiac disease and your recovery. I will revisit your blog for more information. I also see that you have written a book, which may be of interest to me. May you be blessed with a long life of love and happiness! From Liv in Norway

 
At 7:59 AM, Blogger Randi said...

We've been married for 4 yrs and we're still talking about our wedding. I think it was even more special for us because we were allowed to get married( we're two women, a Canadian and an American(me)). The year planning the wedding ( and doing projects)was the best time we probably ever had together.

 
At 9:44 PM, Blogger Deborah Dowd said...

It's no wonder you are havig a hard time moving forward from the wedding- it was such a joyous day for you and yours, I am sure you want it to last forever... and guess what? It will-in a lifetime of red cowboy boots and whoopie cushions!)

 
At 9:50 AM, Blogger Molly said...

Oh, my friend, I know just what you mean. I can't wait to sit down with you - or walk, maybe, instead? - and talk about the past couple of weeks. Yes? I'll call you later today. xo!

And thank you to all who expressed concern about the legality of Internet ministers. We have read the laws in Washington state, and we feel safe having made the choice we did. And our paperwork was processed with no problem, so for now, things are a-okay.

 
At 9:00 PM, Blogger mati rose said...

congratulations! i just stumbled across your blog and am excited because my fiance is gluten free and we're getting married in 2 weeks! yay! i'm inspired!

 
At 12:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a wonderful wedding!! My sister just got married and I am still so excited about it I am showing people pictures like it was MY wedding!! Love the site :)

 
At 7:47 AM, Blogger Rodney Robbins said...

Hey Shauna,

Great blog content, plus wonderful stories and pictures.

To promote your book, may I suggest you contact RTIR.com That's the Radio Television Interview Report. TV and radio producers scan this book LOOKING for guests, then they call you!

Also, you might like to publish a booklet. You can make more money on a gluten free booklet than a book. Check mine out at Rodneys52Ways.com or go to TipsBooklets.com for more information.

Best wishes,
Rodney Robbins
Fellow Celiac

 
At 5:46 PM, Blogger Lorraine said...

Tee! I remember that giddy "this is my husband" thing. There are many wonderful things about being an established (?) married woman, but being a newlywed is pretty awesome.

Thanks for sharing your stories, whatever inspires them.

And happy birthday.

 
At 7:09 AM, Blogger Amanda said...

I have been reading about you and the Chef and never commented before. The love I feel when I read about you two just wells up inside me. Your wedding, your connection, your food together, and your writing about it all is so inspiring and I want to thank you for the beautiful details that spill out on here.

 
At 1:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't ever let it go!! Did you know you are considered a "newly-wed" for The. Entire. First. Year!? I thought that was fantastic!! And after about 6-7 years you understand deeper why people cry at weddings, lol. As you are doing, treasure it all, and thank you for sharing.

 
At 5:15 PM, Blogger Mike Eberhart said...

Shauna, you write some of the most detailed and personal stories on the web - gluten-free or not. I always enjoy stopping by to see what's happening in your life. Though I haven't had a chance to meet you in person, it nearly feels like I have after reading your blog for the past year.

Congratulations on getting married, and I hope your honeymoon in Italy is quite enjoyable and a wonderful experience!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home