Jia Ching and I got married this May in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Overlooking the Bolinas Lagoon in Marin, friends and family gathered for a simple outdoor ceremony and fabulous celebration that I have taken to referring to as the lovefest.
Leading up to the wedding, parents, friends, a tent guy and the two of us engaged in an on again off again debate about the concept of a “rain plan”: Did we need one? Why didn’t we have one? Did we want to spring for the tent just in case? Would all our guests possibly fit inside the living room if it rained on our ceremony or dinner? No way.
When we saw the weekend forecast predicted nothing but sunshine, we breathed a sigh of relief because in the end we hadn’t sprung for the tent and hadn’t really thought through a reasonable rain plan. Everything was planned to take advantage of the gorgeous property and amazing sunshine.
A few days before the weekend, when our photographer Lila suggested that we might just want to think through a plan b, just incase…I sort of cringed.
But then, here’s the thing. When grey clouds rolled in over our heads just as Jia Ching and I began to walk towards each other, I felt only joy. When the sky started sprinkling down on us and our sea of smiling guests halfway through the ceremony, I felt like I was floating on a cloud.
Rain, as so many people reminded us that day, was indeed an auspicious blessing.
Our friends and family members, each of them a champion, didn’t hesitate. Hauling chairs, flowers, plates, kegs, tables, cheese and DJ equipment out from the storm, they collectively managed to turn the soggy surprise weather into a more spectacular house party than any I could have ever dreamed up.
If it wasn’t for the rain, we wouldn’t have gotten to mingle with so many of our guests, sitting around the fireplace instead of at the beautiful tables we had carefully planned and set for eight to ten guests each.
If it wasn’t for the rain, our friends wouldn’t have spontaneously jumped up on the coffee table to share beautiful, sincere stories and loving words to a closely gathered crowd of our loved ones listening carefully and raising their glasses.
If it wasn’t for the rain, the entire party wouldn’t have been jammed around the dessert table in the kitchen all at once to collectively admire and ogle and eventually dive fork first into the gorgeous display of homemade pies provided by our talented and generous friends.
If it wasn’t for the rain, we wouldn’t have danced with quite the same level of reckless abandon that we did when the sun finally broke through the clouds and shined down on us for the rest of the glorious day.
Rain blessed our lovefest in ways we never could have predicted. It brought us closer, it made us laugh and throw our hands up in the air. It filled us with the deepest gratitude for our community.
As one friend surmised, we earned the pleasure of that fabulous impromptu house party. All the time, thought, and concern we had put into planning the nitty gritty details of putting on an all out outdoor fiesta, and then in the end the script was flipped on us.
Bless the rain.
