I had a wedding about 2 weeks after 9/11. My vocabulary didn’t’ include words like “Shanksville, Pa” “nine-eleven,” or “World Trade Center.” It was about the client or the venue. Music was still Canon D and Trumpet Voluntary or occasionally What a Wonderful World.
My daughter had just started her second year of Mom’s Day Out. I took her because the scope of the day wasn’t fully known at 9 am. I heard about the 3rd plane as I got home. I still couldn’t believe the first two.
The world changed and 10 days later we had a wedding. The church wasn’t full because of the difficulties of airline travel. Jennifer (the bride) called me Friday asking my advice, my preferences. Was I too scared to attend? What should they do? Her pastor advised her and Mike to go ahead. Who knew what was going to happen in the next few weeks, or month? We needed this celebration to remind us that life would move on. The caterer didn’t have everything needed for the food because of the shipping delays, and the DJ had suffered a loss in New York. So about 1/3 of the guests showed up to celebrate with Jennifer and Michael. It was a beautiful event. She wanted to include some patriotic music into her ceremony and we asked the whole congregation to sing God Bless America together. What a memory. I always think of them during this time of year. They have 2 children now and while they no longer live in Indiana, they always visit family and go to the church where they were married.
She had options. We could have cancelled, postponed, rescheduled. Vendors surely would have made changes to contracts for this event...deposits refunded if needed, etc but we all chose to get up and say that we would not be stopped. Even a wedding was a sign that the country, our people…we would move forward.
I have never written about 9/11. I have in my journal, of course…notes for my children. I have my version of the history lesson but never really anything on a blog. There wasn’t a reason to write about it. Then 2 years ago, Jennifer found me on Facebook. We relived those 12 days in writing and she finally called me. She has some great video of her wedding and she says it really helps during the anniversary of 9/11.
It got me to think of my friend who had a wedding during Hurricane Irene. The bride and the venue made the decision to postpone the wedding. No one wanted their friends and family travelling in the weather. I guess this blog is just to say that things happen beyond our control. It could be a man-made event, God’s will, or accidents but they happen. We have learned to be forward thinkers, problem solvers and hopefully, a kinder community.
