What do you call over 300 guests at a public park in a city neighborhood of Chicago, dancing side by side with a bride and groom, young kids, and a few scattered local homeless people? Jubilation is a good start.
I just returned from my nephew Brendan and Kati's fabulous, innovative, spirited, emotional, joyous wedding, an event that probably won't be featured in Modern Bride, did not cost a lot of money and yet had an incredible sense of style, and in all likelihood caused much less fretting about what to wear than the average wedding.
It excluded no one and proved that when you invite hundreds of people with whom you have shared some kind of bond to witness one of the biggest and happiest decisions of your life, people take you up on the offer. Especially when you do it on Facebook. Move over expensive linen stock, written, addressed and mailed at least six weeks prior, because you have a formidable and modern competitor. As a friend of mine recently commented after sitting for too long at the table near a DJ playing music too loud for her to understand or appreciate, "We need some new wedding traditions." Well, Brendan and Kati made some serious contributions in that area. Think a huge picnic, anchored by a team of genuine friends, some on set-up detail, others on clean-up, all with great love, welcoming over hundreds of guests bringing food and drinks to supplement the bride and groom's, add in a phenomenal DJ, a great play list, a photo booth, a bouncy house and friends that seemed to truly delight in each other's company and you have an alternative to many of the traditional weddings to which we are all so accustomed. Not that the latter has anything less to offer. But no one is ever going to criticize the creation of another forum for allowing two people to say they are going to stick around each other, through thick and thin.
Thank you Brendan and Kati for a new tradition. And much love.
