Painlessly Wed:
It takes time to figure things out.
When I first met Ryan, he told me didn’t really understand why anyone bothered with marriage. Yes, parties are fun, but he didn’t need a party or a piece of paperwork to keep him loyal to the woman he loves. And he wanted me to feel “free” to stay with him. I wholeheartedly agreed, like the low-maintenance girlfriend I was striving to be. I didn’t care, I just wanted to belong to his beautiful, beautiful beard heart.
Our relationship didn’t start out as a blissful romance. We disagreed, habits clashing while dealing with our respective complexes. We reinvented the art of the pout. There were moments of ecstatic, twitterpated wonder intermixed with tragedy, anxiety attacks and emotional shut-downs. But we just kept trying.
And goddamnit, we got better at it. We forgave, we supported, we encouraged, we took long lingering baths together even when chaos charged in, and as Ryan wrote later in his wedding vows, we would “always chose empathy over fairness.”
It took a lot of emotional work to get where we were on our wedding day, ready and assured, and I imagine it will take hard work for the rest of our lives. But in the months leading up to the wedding, we found that we had more help than we realized. Our friends teamed up and carved our rugged little farm into a lush garden with their bare hands. You name it: heavy lifting, rock wall, gravel pathway and bench construction, acre after acre of weed whacking and bulldozing, all of us thoroughly dredged in sweat and red dust. To have a friend contribute their back to the cause of your love was incredibly touching. What did we do to deserve it?
Truthfully, all you have to do is put in years of loyalty to a circle of friends and family who are amazing at everything. Preferably if the nearest and dearest happen to live and love on a micro brewery/heritage pig farm with an Tolkienesque tree on a rolling hill overlooking a sunset-reflecting lake. Leading up to that fated date, my twin sister Eve and bro-in-law-of-my-dreams Danny (aka the busiest couple in the land) grew an entire hog, brewed a keg of pink saîson with a galaxy of stars as the secret ingredient (we named it after Ralph Fiennes’ cologne in Grand Budapest Hotel, “L’Air de Panåche”), made perfect playlists, freaking MARRIED us, and then went ahead and made sure every detail was perfect (down to PERSONALLY EDITING OUR WEDDING VIDEO – soon to come).
Jamaica, my bridesmaid and bestie (as you should very well know by now) weathered all my wildly fluctuating dream dress ideas and whittled them down to the perfect simplicity my heart truly craved. The faded tiffany blue silk 1930s slip dress I bought at Desert Vintage (Tucson shoutout!) was transformed, via $28 worth of vintage lingerie trim, art deco brooches and some meticulous hand-sewing by a love-filled human, into a slinky wedding gown perfect for a 100 degree day féte. Wearing that dress was like wearing a cool breeze.
My dad’s hard work was the grandest gesture of fatherly love I have ever seen from him. The man is a machine. He personally transformed the place with his feats of fracturing prowess and went about cutifying every last corner. I get a little weepy just thinking about it.
By wedding time, my friends and family and I were all tan and ripped from manual labor, and our love had inspired the creation of a lovely garden, a legit fire pit, an outdoor kitchen with a huge roasting spit, a dance floor underneath a sheltering oak tree, 9 lbs of wedding cheese stacked like a 3 layer cake, four different styles of homebrew, and a 300 lb pig butchered, trussed and guarded overnight by five of the very best men in my life.
In spite of a water shortage scare, mystery smells, and 100 degree heat, July 5th 2014 is now a lush memory of friendly cooperation, pleasant surprises, comfortable comedy, creamy sunlight, and revelations of love from bosom friends. Not a cold nerve for miles. For about 6 hours, our disheveled little farm could almost pass for a schmancy winery party with Wes Anderson on the turntables.
There was a boat filled with fairy lights, oddly colored chiffon hanging from trees like spanish moss, and the tables were decorated with napkins made from clashing vintage fabrics, sorbet-hued microscopes, vintage cameras, obscure antique books, California poppies and copper dinosaurs.
My dear friend Lesli of La Curie, parfumier from Tucson with magically impeccable taste, handcrafted our wedding favors – tiny bottles of a botanical mosquito repellent Mosquito Non-Grata, which smells like heaven, camping and now, my wedding.
A wedding is also a meaningful time to pay homage to those we miss. The star brooches adorning the back of my dress once belonged to my great grandmother, who has since returned to the stars. My little brother Nik, who had died of brain cancer 6 months before the wedding, would have been proud to contribute his truck rack to the pork spit. My other brother, my deceased father’s namesake, wore a vintage shirt with my father’s portrait embroidered on the back and walked me down the aisle.
It only cost us thrice what we hoped it would and as our bank account drained low, we fantasized about an easy elopement. But now we understand why people have weddings. Dear friends who would never have met otherwise now feel like one big curated family circle. Where else besides a wedding can you find your high school bestie and your favorite LA neighbor – strangers to each other, mutual support of our relationship their only bond – doing a running-man-off to your favorite William Onyeabar mash-up?
For one day we are allowed to forget that life is not easy.
That love fades. That there is no happily ever after. That long term relationships require endless patience.
But so far it’s true – our relationship is no different than before the wedding. Ryan still tells me I look pretty even if I woke up on the wrong side of ugly and kisses me passionately even when I’m wearing blood orange lipstick. But something definitely feels different.
Maybe it’s this:
Relationships are never easy, but ours now has its own little clan of believers.
Ryan and I would like to thank with our whole beings, in no particular order, the following darlings:
Eve, my beautiful, unwavering strength and support in my flightiest times, a wrangler of volunteer laborers, a detail worshipper like me, my pride, my flame, my maid of honor, my twin sister. Though you’ve spent most of our existence rooting for me in spite of myself, I could never thank you enough for this one gesture – you gave me one absolutely perfect day that I will never forget.
Danny, you are a charismatic fireball of enthusiasm for life and its warts. You gave us your back, your property, your beer, your pig, your love, your time, your video-editing prowess, your beautiful and bonding words of marriage, your patience, and your complete friendship. In all of the ways, you married us and we could never begin to thank you enough.
Isaac & Beck, you miraculously made settling down appetizing for two diehard wanderlusters. When you became pregnant with what will undoubtedly be the world’s sexiest baby, you asked us to take over the lease of your beautiful brick downtown LA loft which you had been lovingly renovating for 3 years. We truly do love it, just like you said we would.
Lovely Beck, you made sure to find the exact shade of lipstick I was looking for then spent over an hour intricately applying my makeup and nail polish. Yet when you were done, I felt as naked as a newborn and almost as beautiful as you. Magical.
Isaac, you spent that same hour fucking with Ryan’s bow tie, shot the most stunning photos while being a best man, and then later heroically tookover the role of MC after Sig accidentally drank too much bourbon. We love our Trumbos and can’t wait to see what epic cuteness our future together holds. Thank you again. For everything.
Dad, we haven’t always been close, but our mutual respect for one another has always been a given. You did everything you could within your hectic schedule to make all my cute farm wedding wishes come true. You literally moved the equivalent of a mountain for me. I will never forget that. I love you, Dad.
Jamaica – You are amazing. You patiently accepted every little challenge I foisted up on your skilled and model-hot hands with a smile. I see other pretty dresses and I honestly don’t want any of them. I have the perfect one.
Angie – My Goddess of Treats, Giver of Hugs, Lover of Love. You made our dessert table your personal work of art and fed our vegetarian friends the most delicious veggie curry tacos. But more palpable than all that, to me, was your sexy, groovy, nourishing presence. Thank you, sister.
Paulette – You’re going to wish you had a Paulette at your wedding. She hunted down decor, tablecloths, candles, lights, dishes, tents, fabric… every lingering thing you couldn’t possibly have thought of yourself. She got there early, set everything up with bulletproof taste and smiled like the wedding fairy she was all day. Many thanks, Paulette. I owe you big time.
Aaron, you fantastic man, you. It wasn’t enough to help slaughter and cook the meat, cut and style the wedding party’s hair and beards, and keep everyone’s spirits high. You drove the newlyweds home to LA and then all the way back to Santa Cruz. You left us speechless. Thank you forever.
Catherine – We barely knew ye, we just knew we wanted you and your joviality to be a part of our day. You were everywhere we needed you to be, and you took a jillion lovely photos too. I’m looking forward to our life together as sister-friends.
Mom – You put so much thought into our wedding and looked so beautiful that day …and all of the days leading up to it. I can never thank you enough for making me who I am today. You taught me to love myself.
Josh, Janet & Hazel – You brought great wine in quantity, good looks in excess and the loveliest flower girl in a miracle dress. Thank you for being the best bro and sis, I know we have tons of memories to make and forget together.
Rory – The flowers looked like they were painted by Georgia O’Keefe. They were exactly the pastel dream I was imagining. Thank you for enjoying your craft so much that it shows, and for being such a good friend to my mother.
Joel & Amanda – Both of you braved the outlandish elements on multiple weekends, digging, shoveling, heavy-lifting, weeding… Then you happily took over the job of bartending with big gorgeous smiles and generous pours. We hope your upcoming nuptials are buoyed aloft by such delightful friends.
More special thanks to Rich, Grace, Ciaran, The Mattesons, and our grandparents, for traveling so far just to make our day complete. We love you to the ends of the earth. <3
CREDITS:
Photos by Isaac Trumbo, Catherine Plein, Will Wells, and Ryan Flynn
Flowers by Rory Barlew
Hair by Aaron Clark
Makeup by Beck Trumbo
Dress from Desert Vintage
Bowtie from Zelma Rose
Ryan’s Walnut Inlay Ring from Tungsten Rings for Men
Kale Salad from Kale Cart
