One Love: Let's Get Together

When we planned our wedding, we wanted a fun, family reunion, 4th of July picnic-type vibe. We chose a beautiful equestrian property with acres of pasture and woods, where guests could wander, walk, camp, visit, and play. Wedding events centered around three rustic barns that were decorated with twinkling lights and chandeliers that created a magical setting. Those amenities were great, but the reason we chose the venue was the house – a 5-bedroom Cape Cod, built in the 1920s that had formal gardens, a pool, and a hot tub. It was a perfect spot for immediate family to stay, and for the wedding party to get ready. It was also fenced so that we could keep it separate from the wedding activities, and large enough that we also hosted the rehearsal dinner there.

For the wedding, we had kid activities like bubbles, chalk, and a rainbow parachute to float and play with. Besides the kid stuff, adult activities included a bar, weed tent, flower gardens, photo booth, a giant Jenga set, four sets of custom-made corn hole boards with light-up holes, air hockey, dancing, and karaoke. The bar and pot tent opened at 2 pm, with the wedding happening at 4:10. The idea was that you would come for the party, stay for the wedding. We had a championship barbeque team cater the event and prepare a whole hog and all the fixings. We hoped to create a playful mood where people would feel welcomed and comfortable in casual attire.

When it came time to pick the music for the wedding, we continued the fun and casual theme. Our “prelude” of welcome music included tunes from the Pixar short “Lava,” Adam Sandler’s "I Want to Grow Old With You" from The Wedding Singer film, "Somebody's Getting Married" from The Muppets Take Manhattan, and the sentimental favorite “Love is Love" by Mary Lambert.

Since neither my husband nor I have any living parents, there was not a traditional parental procession down the aisle, but I did want to honor my stepmother in some way, so in addition to having her do a reading, I had my brother, the officiant, escort her down the aisle to be the last guest seated. I chose "One Love" by Bob Marley as the song for them to enter to. I thought that the lyrics were perfect for welcoming people to gather to celebrate our love and family.

One love, one heart

Let's get together and feel alright

After walking our stepmom down the aisle and escorting her to her seat, my brother welcomed everyone, made a few announcements about silencing cell phones, told a joke about "marrying his sister" and started the rest of the wedding procession. My brother is a former football stadium announcer, so we had him announce all the groomsmen like they were athletes coming into a stadium. We played "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve, which is the song that the Seattle Seahawks football team plays when they enter the stadium at their home games. It was a complete blast and everyone loved it! In fact, we were just going to have the guys come in that way, but when we practiced it at the rehearsal, the bridesmaids protested that they wanted to be "announced" too, so we made a last-minute change and brought them in the same way, but to the Bruno Mars song "Marry You."

Though we had a professional photographer, we did not hire a videographer for the wedding. Instead, I asked a guest to live stream on Facebook using my phone and my Facebook account. That way, out-of-town friends could watch the fun if they were so inclined, and we could also go back and watch it later.

The day was so much fun! After eating, dancing & toasting, we had a little “sendoff” and walked over to the house to have some quiet time together and change clothes. I removed my veil and tiara, put my melted hair up into a clip, then changed into capris and a white blouse that seemed suitably “bride-ish” and we went back to our guests.

We sang karaoke, talked, ate, drank, and after most guests left, close family and friends sat around a fire and enjoyed reconnecting with each other. It wasn’t a perfect day, but it was full of humor, joy, great food, wonderful people, and lots of love.

After cleaning up, packing up, loading rental items, and returning a truck, we headed off to spend six days in a house on the water for a "familymoon" with family. My brothers and their families, my son, my former foster son, my stepmother, had a lovely time digging clams, cooking, hot tubbing, kayaking, exploring, and spending time together. My husband's family has a lake house nearby and we went there to swim, boat, and enjoy the 4th of July festivities. It was a wonderful time.

A few days into our trip, I finally had decent WiFi and decided to check my email and look at the photos and videos that people had posted using our wedding hashtag (#wildrice7117.) There was some sort of problem with the video we had live-streamed, and I had two emails from Facebook marked "urgent" that said that I needed to respond within 24-hours. Unfortunately, they had both been sent more than 48-hours earlier, and I hadn't received them previously. Whoops.

The content of the emails helped me understand why the video hadn't been playing properly. In essence, Facebook questioned whether we had the legal right to use the music that played for the first three minutes of our wedding video. We did. We used a legitimate, licensed DJ who only had music that was legally purchased. If I had responded to the email from Facebook within those 24-hours, I probably wouldn't have received the subsequent cease-and-desist email from them telling me that, at the behest of the Marley estate, they were removing the part of my wedding video that contained any of his "One Love" song. Months later, I discovered that another guest had also live-streamed the wedding and that the same section was missing from that video as well.

There exists no video of my brother escorting my stepmother down the aisle, and the lovely warm welcome that Bob Marley provided to our wedding guests remains, like the man himself, only a memory.