{"id":847,"date":"2009-12-26T12:43:46","date_gmt":"2009-12-26T19:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=847"},"modified":"2025-11-06T09:07:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:07:01","slug":"stephanies-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=847","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie’s Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a true story about a family wedding that actually took place JUST as I’m about to tell you.\u00a0 This is a classic example of my eclectic family.<\/span><\/p>\n

My cousin Stephanie married when she was 33 (about 16 years ago) to her long time, much older boyfriend Miguel.\u00a0 Stephanie was a dancer by trade.. almost 6′ of gorgeous tall willowy blond… classic spiritual Southern California girl.\u00a0 Miguel was probably 15 years her senior, did music for the studios, played in band and led Male Bonding Retreats.\u00a0 I said we were eclectic.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ceremony took forever!\u00a0 It was held somewhere on top of a Malibu Mtn.\u00a0 The invitation said Potluck and then dinner which was confusing but I brought a bucket of chicken, dressed for a wedding and went.\u00a0\u00a0 Parking was a dirt lot with lose wild dogs everywhere… me, managing it in heels!<\/span><\/p>\n

So I get a soda, find a seat and chit chat with the relatives.\u00a0 For almost an hour and I wasn’t late to begin with!\u00a0 Finally some people gather up front where a makeshift alter like area is set up.\u00a0 I can’t tell who might be the shaman\/guru or whoever is marrying them.\u00a0 We all hush but they take forever settling stuff about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally on the 10′ high ridge to the right of all of us we spot a procession.\u00a0 My cousin, surrounded by her parents and brothers is slowly walking a path on the ridge.\u00a0 Halfway there they stop but my cousin walks on.\u00a0 The ridge meets the end of the seating and she steps down onto some rocks.\u00a0 There she does an interpretive dance for about 10 minutes.\u00a0 No… really!\u00a0 After that her two bridesmaids washed her feet… did I mention she was barefoot!… and they helped her put shoes on.\u00a0 Then the three of them danced down the middle of the aisle to the alter.<\/span><\/p>\n

THEN… on the left sloping hill we hear drums and American Indian style tom tom music as the groom and him party do a war dance\u00a0 over to us.\u00a0 From there they begin the ceremony… which none of us can hear as there isn’t a sound system.\u00a0 But its a lot of “four elements… four directions… this represents this and that represents that” stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

At one point my dad gets up, walks up to the food and walks back.\u00a0 “Only wedding I’ve ever been to where you can get a beer right in the middle of it,” he comments.\u00a0 He’s shushed by his Aunt and his wife counsel’s me not to eat any of the “things” being passed to the relatives to “join the circle of family” in case its satanic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally it ends and we know this because a band of African dancers comes from behind us and dances down the aisle.\u00a0 They gather around the wedding party and the whole group dances up and down the aisle and then back up toward the cars.\u00a0 For some unspoken\u00a0reason everyone get up and dances or just follows them.\u00a0 The dancers dance their way around a bend and up a steep hill.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Are we sacrificing them to the volcano?” I asked my giggling sister.<\/span><\/p>\n

After they did something I completely missed because I was hanging towards the back with the other smokers.. the party made it’s way over to the huge tent where the reception was being held.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally some normalcy!\u00a0 Well… if you count the night winds doing a hell of a good job of trying to rip that tent off the mountain!\u00a0 The dance floor was too small and packed for me to do any of my own dancing so I left early…<\/span><\/p>\n

…. to find a bar!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a true story about a family wedding that actually took place JUST as I’m about to tell you.\u00a0 This is a classic example of my eclectic family. My cousin Stephanie married when she was 33 (about 16 years … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-joy-of-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}