Such a Beautiful wedding! as Mrs Soames would say (apologies to Thornton Wilder)....

It has been a rather, well, busy last 10 days or so. Some of these days were ones that if someone were to tell me, as many do, that "I wouldn't want your job" I would have agreed. Today was not one of those days. Because today, I got to perform the marriage of Allison and Joshua Shandy at her parents home north of Odessa. I have not performed a wedding for three and half years, maybe longer, and I have never performed one any more beautiful than this one. The weather was perfect, the bride, beautiful, the music lovely (including a stunning moment for me when, for the processional, iPod played through speakers played the hymn Praise to the Lord, The Almighty) and both fathers led in prayer in the midst of the service. The colors for the wedding were black, champagne and red.... Here is a picture of Allison, Josh, their attendants and parents after the wedding.

Those are apple trees, laden with red ripe fruit, on each side of the arbor. And so, of course, last night after the rehearsal I had to come home and download from Itunes a John Rutter recording (Elizabeth Hampton setting I think) of the early American poem Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. Below is the text to the poem. Which is what I will leave you with, except that the reception was held in the barn out back, the bride sang along with Michael Buble's rendition of The Very Thought of You for the first dance, and we all ate homemade beef stew and cornbread and drank orange Crush and root beer. Proving that although huge bucks and "keeping up with the Jones girl's wedding" can make for an outlandishly expensive cookie cutter wedding and reception, today's wedding was truly beautiful--a gorgeous night, photos taken by the family, a grandpa singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart on his acoustical guitar for the processional (thanks Pete, for another lovely memory) and gobs of thrown rose petals as a beautiful bride and her red-headed husband walked down the grassy aisle is so much more pleasing to the soul.

1
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.
2
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.
3
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
4
I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.
5
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.