Anna & Justin's Wedding Day

A few thoughts about weddings:

There’s nothing unusual about wet faces at a wedding.

The role of the best man and the maid of honor is to keep things under control so the chief participants can enjoy their big moment.

The bride’s train may get soiled on her first dance of the evening.

The mother of the bride bravely agrees to the risks involved in an outdoor wedding – it may be, after all, one of the last fantasies her little girl asks for.

When it’s her only daughter, a mom gets just one chance to bring daydream to reality. Perfectly. Unforgettably.

Weddings require months of careful planning. And the August 7, 2005 outdoor wedding of Anna Martin and Justin Winter at Dunaway Gardens in northwest Coweta County was no exception.

Of course, Anna’s mother, Nancy Shepak, had a “sort of” backup plan in case of rain – there was a tent and a gazebo that might shelter a dozen or so guests. But after a few scouting trips to plan the site and choreograph bridesmaids (eight of them), two flower girls and a ring-bearer, and one best man and eight groomsmen – their only weather concerns were heat and humidity.

They’d seen the sunlight dappling through dancing trees. They’d heard bird calls as they scoped out the incredible beauty of this lush Eden. They’d walked up and down the stone steps to the patio beside the Wedding Tree; they sat on the grassy slopes of the amphitheater, and pronounced it perfect.

Besides, it couldn’t rain on Anna’s wedding.

A brief interruption here. Dunaway Gardens was developed in the late 1920s by an actress from Arkansas, a popular star on the Chautauqua Circuit. Hetty Jane Dunaway had the imagination, energy, and capital to purchase roughly 135 acres of mixed runaway vegetation and subdue it. There were natural stone pools, floral rock gardens, waterfalls, tiered seats around a grassy amphitheater.

She preserved trees (some white oaks now more than 200 years old) and encouraged native plants like azaleas and rhododendron to bloom. At the same time she created a theatrical training center and hosted ballet troupes, developed indoor and outdoor theater and helped nurture would-be directors and actors.

After Ms. Dunaway died in 1961, the gardens were essentially abandoned to kudzu and wisteria, and slept for 40 years in virtual neglect when Jennifer Bigham and her husband, Roger, bought the property, thinking to build a house and retire there.

It took little exploration to discover a virtual paradise of rock walls, slate patios, goldfish ponds, a one-acre granite outcropping, and hanging gardens still hidden by the jungle. Not intending to restore the gardens, but simply to renovate and save them, Bigham hired crews to stay on top of the overgrowth, and is still finding surprises as the work goes on. The Bighams began renting out the facility for weddings and other events in 2000, and Anna Martin fell in love with it in 2005.

We were among the lucky hundreds invited to Anna’s wedding, but we had to decline because of travel plans. When an invitation arrived several weeks ago to a Re-Reception at her mom’s house we felt as though we’d been given a second chance.

A Re-Reception? “Oh,” a bridesmaid’s mom said. “Maybe you didn’t hear. The wedding and the reception were rained out. They’re doing the reception over again at Nancy’s house.”

A Re-Reception. We’re not going to miss this, I told Dave. Our friend Nancy is such a cheerful, upbeat person that I thought she was just making up for a disappointing event. What does “rained out” mean anyhow? A few sprinkles? Did their guests wimp out because the weather forecast included “showers”?

The Re-Reception was delightful, probably all the more because it took place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Peachtree City. But it was the video that confirmed it: That wedding was deluged, but by no means “rained out.”

The ceremony was recorded by two or three cameramen, one of them a professional whose editing skills varied the images from different angles and distances. Moreover, the groom forgot he was wearing an open mike and unwittingly provided subtitles that enhanced the visuals.

Some of his remarks were predictable. “I don’t believe we’re going ahead with this,” he murmured to the minister, who is also his dad.

They speculated that the guests would bail out or that the wedding itself would be moved to the gazebo (which might have accommodated a dozen), but no one was willing to make that call. After all, by the time this was seriously considered, every one involved was soaked to the skin.

To the skin, trust me. I missed the wedding but I watched the video twice.

The bridesmaids appeared to be dressed in about eight different shades of aqua-green plastic wrap, which, well, acted like a wet T-shirt contest. Their hair was hanging in dripping ropes down their backs and most of them had long since taken their shoes off.

Was it raining? No. It was pouring. It’s all in the videotape, solid sheets of water sluicing onto the bridal party, family members, guests. The dozens of large umbrellas under which they stood were of no help at all.

The water on this wedding party’s faces was from above. They weren’t weeping. They were laughing hilariously. In the rain.

As for the best man, he valiantly maneuvered an umbrella to keep the rain off the bridal pair – totally in vain – but in his effort to cover Anna and Justin, water poured off the umbrella and straight into his own face.

After the words that joined them, the couple moved to the gazebo where a wet floor was waiting for their first dance. Anna’s beautiful wedding dress and its train were too heavy to bustle, and the video shows Justin catching it with a toe and flinging it behind Anna. Were they able to clean the train later? “Pretty well,” allowed Nancy.

Most of those whose voices were recorded said “I’ve never enjoyed a wedding so much,” or “This is one we’ll never forget.”

It certainly warranted seeing again and again. By video. In Nancy’s dry living room.

how lovely!

Submitted by doglovernonestop on Mon, 12/04/2006 - 3:46am.

Anna was my piano teacher when I lived in Georgia. I was also unable to attend the wedding - Thank you for describing it.
~tory

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