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IT WASN'T UNTIL MID-AFTERNOON yesterday that I happened to hop in the car and drive up the road on an errand. Rounding the first curve in the road, I wished I'd have come out sooner...I'd forgotten this was Wedding Day for Jakie and Rachel's daughter!


And such a wedding! I'd seen activity going on around the place for months as the family made preparations. And who wouldn't have a lot to do to prepare for five hundred guests...at one's own house...for an all-day event?
(Yes, you heard me right--five hundred guests!)

Mind-boggling (I tend to think you'd agree) to imagine feeding and entertaining that multitude of people for an entire day (with no caveat such as 'weather permitting'... and no catering trucks or ordering-in allowed.)

Well, you can bet after that first trip out--when I had to slow to a crawl to allow the great flock of jovial black-suited young Amishmen a chance to clear the road--I scrounged up lots of excuses for frequent trips past the place again.



On one such pass-by, a buggy was rolling up the road as I approached, a single young man doing the pulling. Ah--what's going on? I wondered. Lowering my car window, I called out, "Do you have the bride and groom in there?"
"No!" was the loud reply from the throng preceding the buggy; but I didn't stop for an explanation. Instead I bravely thrust my camera through the open window and took a picture. At that, there was a burst of gleeful laughter from the group. Ha! now this handsome young Amishman would be forever immortalized playing the role of horse!


I can't tell you, Dear Reader, how often I squelched the impulse to repeat that action with the camera, there were so many photo ops! (And I drove by so many times!)


Late into the evening, the celebrating crowd spilled out onto the road, groups and clusters walking in the neighborhood and setting up volleyball games in the nearby churchyard they'd requested permission to use.


On my final jaunt past the house, it was dark and many horses clip-clopping their buggies full of tired wedding-goers toward home were exiting the place.

But the guests, of course, couldn't possibly be as exhausted as the hosts!

Now there's a tying of the knot, I'm thinking (imagining myself the mother of the bride) that would without a doubt unravel me!

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