Stu was a proponent of marrying at his grandparents’ island, with a pig on a spit with an apple in its mouth, but he said he would go to City Hall if that was what I wanted. I advocated City Hall because, as I told people, I didn’t want to think about planning a wedding. The process seemed onerous and unreal. One of the few weddings I’d seen had been my cousin Kellie’s extravaganza, which occurred right after I returned from Spain. She and her husband married straight out of college. The day before the wedding she threw all twelve bridesmaids an elaborate brunch, and on the day itself we wore emerald green satin with leg-of-mutton sleeves. A hundred guests toasted the couple in the penthouse ballroom of a Portland sky rise, and I wondered just where it was that girls learned how to do these things. A few years later Stu’s friends began to get married, and while the weddings weren’t as elaborate as Kellie’s, they were significant events, with gazebos in gardens and tuxedos on the boys.
