They Do

N.B. This is one of a series of posts about my short trip to Nova Scotia. Feel free to browse forward or backward using the navigation links.
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The skies cleared and we were treated to brilliant sunshine for the main event.

As wedding guests, we were granted not only free admission to the Highland Village, but we were also permitted to drive up the "Authorized Personnel Only" road on the far side of the regular parking lot. The steep, unpaved road led all the way up to the decommissioned church at the top of the hill. Breathtaking views.

E's dress was lovely. The design was simple and unfussy, with clean lines, and  projected a folksy feeling in a  sophisticated way.  A little quirky and cool, just like the bride.

(I think this is also my best picture of one of the hand-felted bouquets.)

E looks radiant as she gazes at her beloved.

T is looking quite happy as well (note again the felted corsages):

E3 graciously consented to slow down long enough to pose for this picture:

The happy couple:

The ceremony was entirely in Gaelic, so I sang and prayed along with the congregation based on my idiosyncratic view of how to pronounce the words on the left-hand side of the program.  The officiant was a judge who drove around with a pro-Gaelic bumper sticker; apparently, E  spotted the sticker while driving, and managed to introduce herself without causing any traffic incidents (woot!).  She found singers, musicians and a student minister who all could express themselves in Gaelic (apparently the purists noticed a variety of accents among the participants, but that was far too subtle for a neophyte like me to discern).  E had mentioned that the Gaelic-only ceremony was a very "political" choice - a subversive one - but I  maybe out-subverted the subversion a bit by reciting the Lord's Prayer in English while everyone else said it in Gaelic.  (Cue maniacal laugh here.)

One of the most amazing parts of the ceremony was one that E had alluded to beforehand --  I think she said something about wanting to include E3 in the ceremony -- but it still took me completely off-guard.  Whatever vague idea I had envisioned, it was nothing like this.  It was section 8 of the program, entitled "Promise to the Child".

E: You are my daughter, and I promise that I will give you love, as I was; and that I will take care of you, as I was; as long as I live.
T: I promise that I will welcome you into my life, and that I will support E as your mother and that I will take care of you as a parent, as long as I live.
E: [W]e are giving you this [item] as a symbol of each thing we have promised you, and of the new family that we will have together.

There are surely many challenges when building a blended family; you only have to look at literature, fairy tales, movies, and the news media, to know this.  But every now and then you come across a family that approaches those challenges with absolute beauty and grace.  This is one of them.

(The other one I can think of, off-hand, is R's family.  When his father and stepmother married, or maybe when they had their first child together, they commissioned a painting, an idealized portrait of their blended family.  The family is portrayed in a lush manoral type setting, each one given an air of nobility and happiness.  They literally shared their vision with the kids. Independent of the artistic merit of the painting, it is so incredibly cool and so incredibly moving.)

The paparazzi were out in full force. G, a high school friend of the bride, served as videographer:

A pre-teen girl near me was holding her family's camera, so I asked if she was the photographer. She said, "No, I just take pictures."

Others who did not bring old-fashioned cameras used whatever recording devices were available to them:

The receiving line looked quite glamorous, with many of the ladies in ivory…

and the men decked out in formal kilts:

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