A Georgian House of Feasting

In my last blog post, I referenced an excerpt from Ecclesiastes about a house of mourning and a house of feasting. It is better to enter the former, says the writer of chapter 7, verse 2, because you learn more there than in the latter. We can learn much wisdom in the house of mourning, to be sure, but I don't think that means we should shy away from entering the house of feasting sometimes, or from really enjoying it while we're there. 

Several weeks ago, we entered a house of feasting in Georgia when we attended the wedding of my nephew Tyler & his lovely bride Louisa (aka Wesa). It was a time of great delight, and I learned a number of things that weekend, as well.  

I learned that...

...the beginning of March is a great time to visit a southern state such as Georgia, if you wish to go straight from freezing cold to summer warm, from gloom to bloom, from drab and bare to vivid and abundant. Of course, Georgia wasn't fully leafed and flowered out yet, but contrasted to southern Ontario, it was deliciously weathered.

...visiting a little "Mennonite fabric store" is a fun thing for the Schrock ladies to do while the Schrock men are visiting Outfitters.

...rubber coin purses still have the same clown-nose appeal to the youngsters nowadays that they had back when I was a schoolgirl. 

...Wesa's dad, Steve Overholt, is an eager, thorough tour guide. After we Schrock ladies and the men were finished browsing our respective shopping centers, we met again at the Overholt's farm, Wesa's home place, for a tour of their large dairy operation. Steve met us out front and invited us in his hospitable southern drawl to join him in "fixin' to go over yonder" for touring their carousel milking parlor. He was a great dispenser of fascinating info regarding the goings-on of their 500-cow dairy farm. Their industriousness and efficiency were impressive. At one point, Wesa's mom Kaylene came out and joined her husband in guiding the tour. I couldn't believe how relaxed they both were in graciously entertaining us "tourists" on the day before their daughter's wedding!

...Wesa's special charm captures little people.

...we can fit a lot of Schrocks into one tiny house, if we need to. We'd made last minute arrangements to host a pizza supper for any of the Tribe of Dan who weren't involved in the rehearsal on Friday night, and we all needed a place to gather. My bro-in-law Nolan, had who booked the Airbnb accommodations for him & Annette and Ken & me, asked the hostess for permission to have family over for the evening, and she promptly gave him the gracious go-ahead. I really wonder what the lady pictured - a handful of guests in her cottage-type house? Meanwhile, it was close to 30 of us that we crammed in!

...couples these days have unique guest books at their wedding. Signing the guest board here is my twin Annette, and the guest book attendant seated at the table is my niece Julianna (bro Tim & Margie's daughter, hence a sister to the groom).

...surprisingly, the art of macrame can show up in a wedding sermon, and even be the focal point of it! The preacher likened marriage to "macrame" work in the biblical Tabernacle, where loops were coupled together to "make into one". In his sermon points, he told the bride and groom to "couple the coupling", and offered them some "Do nots" as well as "Do knots". Besides the general admonitions for a Do not (don't end the day angry with each other ) and a Do knot (Give thanks for your spouse) there were very specific instructions for Tyler: a Do not (avoid climbing trees*) and a Do knot (Bring Wesa back home to visit).                  

*last summer, Tyler fell 20-some feet out of a tree he was climbing and broke his back. He has since fully recovered, PTL

...a young niece can pose an example of a person being cheerful even if she's feeling impatient. My bro Tom & Danae's family sat on the bench just ahead of us during the wedding ceremony. After the service, while we were sitting there waiting our turn to be ushered out, their daughter Paige turned around to face those of us behind her and generously offered her trademark smiles.

...a white raspberry cupcake paired with ice cream and trio-ed with an Andes mint makes an excellent dessert at a wedding reception. Other excellent features at this wedding reception were the white and lights and drapery making up the decor, the name cards (both at the bridal table under the pergola and at the guest tables surrounding the pergola), and the main course of the meal: mashed potatoes, poor man's steak, mixed vegetables, Rita's salad (I have no idea who Rita is, but I'm pretty sure she can make a mean salad), and dinner rolls with cinnamon butter. 

Another thing I learned about weddings there in the Montezuma area of Georgia is that folks go about them in a big way. They have spacious church buildings, large families and congregations, huge guest lists (the wedding reception hall was set up for 570 guests!), vast tables of good food and gallons of sweet iced tea, and hearts that are big on connection and hospitality. Speaking of which, we were amazed at all the friendly waves we received from people in cars we met while we were driving to church on Sunday morning. For me, it was very reminiscent of the time I taught school in Arkansas and one of my students explained the waving culture as You wave at everybody you meet on the road; if you don't know the person, you just lift a few fingers off the steering wheel in a wave, but if you do know the person, you get your whole hand off the wheel and wave like you mean it.

...weddings are such great places for visiting with the relatives, adoring the babies, and meeting new people while seeing how many connections we can make with mutual acquaintances. (are mennos the only ones to do this?) In the photos above, my sisters are talking with my niece Kristy (bro Todd and Sharon's daughter), my niece Sofia (sis Faye & Leroy's daughter) is enjoying her built-in soother, my SIL Margaret (bro Tim's wife, as well as mother of the groom) is watching her granddaughter Chloe, and my twin Annette & bro-in-law Nolan are entertaining Jameson (bro Tom & Danae's son) who is the newest member of the Tribe of Dan. Anni & Nolan have a special knack for engaging children. They are also great people with whom to stay up until midnight yakking and solving the world's problems - just sayin'.

...it's possible to take a bunch of pictures at a wedding and not get even one of the bride and groom in which they know you are taking the shot and they are looking right into the camera. I think T&L look so sweet in the pose above where, during the reception program they are waiting on the Mountain View crew to gather round them and help them sing a song, but I did also want a straight-on view of their faces. So I posted their wedding invitation pic here. As a side note: People say that in a fascinating marriage phenomenon, a couple starts looking alike after living together for years. Seems to me that it's only taken months of serving together at Mountain View for this to happen to Tyler and Wesa! What do you think?

...it's nice when the locals plan a meal and gathering time for the leftover company in the evening after the wedding. This provided more time for catch-up chats with my brothers and in-laws across from me at the supper table, for watching my curly-top niece Hope (sis Faye & LeRoy's daughter) mother her doll baby, and for lining up with Anni & Faye and trying to get a decent sister pose. Not talking about my sisters - they're decent already - I mean the pose we were trying for, where none of us had our eyes too closed or our laughter too open. Which was kind of hard when my brother was running the camera and making funny remarks, and taking pictures of Nolan taking pictures of us with his phone. Anyway, credit for the above photo goes to bro Todd. 

...even a glorious wedding day comes to a close. As I watched the sunset's glow spread over a graveyard next to the church, I marveled at the beauty of both life and death. 

The house of mourning and the house of feasting, I ponder. Yes, I can learn from both.