Tuesday, September 25, 2007

And the award for best engagement announcement video goes to...

Ned and Emily (and Ned's sister Joan) made this video for Ned's parents, who were out of the country at engagement time. We open with Joan and Ned talking about the wedding site, where Joan and her husband Lou got married a couple of years ago. I think Lou's running the camera.

No, wait. Emily and Joan never appear in the frame together. So I bet it's Emily doing the two-shot of Ned and Joan. Then Joan takes the camera and puts it on Emily and Ned.

Apparently the sound was no good up there on the windy cliff; hence, the subtitles. But when Emily delivers her great goofy line, I hear her voice anyway.



The whole thing makes me ridiculously happy.

Friday, September 14, 2007

My daughling darter's getting married

Here's my firstborn, Emily, with her fiance, Ned.

The photo's from their trip to India last summer. Emily's lovelier than that, but I still dig the photo. It suggests standing before the vista of the future and turning back for a moment to commemorate togetherness and include others. A metaphor for a wedding...

which will take place next summer in western Colorado on the edge of a cliff. Can't wait. Pen and I are thrilled. We'd hoped Ned might be The One ever since we first met him.

Imagine, if you will, that your kid grew up into one of the finest human beings on earth, and then fell in love with another utterly splendid person, and then they decided to get married. And you thought about it and realized that you couldn't wish for anyone or anything better to happen to your beloved child. Imagine how your heart might vault out of your chest and go skipping around the room. That's how this feels.

Just knowing such a great couple--even if one of them weren't my daughter--would be a good, positive thing. But Emily IS my daughter. And knowing her past, the pain of divorce that was a big part of her childhood, and some of the struggles and fears she's worked through as an adult, this happy news feels hugely redemptive. It's indescribable, really. Because of Emily and Ned, I have this enormous, irrational hope for the whole wide world.

Love wins after all.