George and Amanda came out to my house to get married down by the riverside. Despite the ironic fact that Amanda is a divorce lawyer, they’re a classic example of young, hopeful, ambitious people psyched about each other and extremely happy to get married.

Except…they had a thing. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up. No, let me digress and contextualize.

Having performed close to 350 ceremonies at this point, I’ve married A LOT of couples. A lot. I’ve worked with people who care deeply about each other, people who are insanely hot for each other, people who are good friends, people who still can’t figure out how they manage to make a relationship work, people who can barely stand each other but are getting married anyway, people who, in finding each other, have clearly saved each other’s lives.

I’ve married teens and grandparents. I’ve married people who don’t speak English. I’ve married couples who’ve been together a few months and couples who’ve been together 35 years. Gay, straight, trans, and, interestingly enough, a whole lot of dog lovers (though they weren’t marrying the dog).

Ok. You get the picture. I’ve seen a lot of love.

What stood out for me about George and Amanda was Amanda’s complete lack of guardedness when it came to her love for George. She had a kind of unbridled, gazillion-kilowatt passion for him which beamed out of her face like an exploding sun. Nothing tempered or held back about it. It was full-on, shared-with-the-world capital LUV.

Of course, what also stood out for me was the fact that George, who’s a quieter, less demonstrative kind of guy, seemed completely unperturbed by the amount of affection coming towards him. In fact, quite the opposite. He drank it in like a lost desert traveler with his head plunged into the pool at the oasis.

A lot of folks might think it would be great to be loved that much. But, I know people who would be a little overwhelmed by that much energy laser-beamed directly at them. They wouldn’t know how to take it in or how to respond if they weren’t that kind of Beamer themselves. Some might not think they deserved that much affection.

Not George. He’s clearly given her the message that she can’t possibly dig him too much, so go for it, Amanda. Beam til your guts ache and your face falls off. Knock yourself out.

It’s a rather cynical, rambunctiously contentious age we live in. So their juicy, complementary love mojo was an utterly beautiful thing to see.

Laura and Brendan contacted me about performing their wedding up atop beautiful Snake Mountain in Weybridge. I’d been there to visit friends who live on the East side of the mountain before, but never wandered up the West side, which looks out over Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.

I met Laura and Brendan in the parking lot, and along with Laura’s brother Tom and Tom’s friend Jerry.

NOTE: Tom and Jerry are not their real names. As has been remarked upon before in these pages, I have a swiss cheese brain and have just forgotten who they really are. But I figure Tom goes well with Laura, as those are the names of the brother and sister in “The Glass Menagerie.” And Tom and Jerry…

Not to mention that was the original name for a little duo which later became known as Simon and Garfunkel:

Anyway, we all set out up the trail.

And to our great surprise, one of the first things we encountered on Snake Mountain was…a snake! A lovely Eastern Garter Snake taking advantage, I’m sure, of the first truly warm day of spring.

This is not the Actual Snake Mountain Snake. I didn’t get my camera out fast enough. But it’s basically what Snake Mountain Snake looked like. I’m sure there are individual differences, but there wasn’t time to check for piercings or tattoos.

While Snake Mountain is hardly an arduous hike, not only was it the first truly warm day of spring, it was also the first truly HUMID day of spring, and despite the filmy dress, poor Laura was wearing her hair long and her leggings wooly. There were many stops to adjust:

For which I was grateful, being a non-humidity-loving gal myself (not to mention a little out of shape from the long, cold winter).

One of the things I discovered along the way is that Laura just completed her master’s degree in Library Science, and that while still looking for a library job, she’s currently working on an organic farm – which she loves. And Brendan is an arborist, who used to work with my friend John Swepston. Which means that, like John, Brendan can do this:

John Swepston, being truly hot and macho. John’s wife, by the way, is the amazing wedding photographer Jennifer Kiewit, whose work has oft been profiled in these pages as well! Small world.

Tom, it turns out, is a photographer, so it was handy to have him along. And Jerry does PR for a New York State Senatorial candidate. Said candidate used to be a TV news guy, and apparently has better name recognition than the incumbent. Let this be a lesson to all political contenders…

After about an hour of mid-grade sweating, we made it to the top, and paused for a while to admire the view:

I also felt the need to admire Laura’s pretty pink pedicure, which just looked fantastic with both the rocks and her bouquet!

I performed the ceremony while Tom and Jerry took pictures. Then we toasted the happy couple with a bit-o-bubbly:

As you can see from Laura’s jacket, it didn’t stay steamy and sweaty for long, spring weather in VT being the ever-mercurial animal that it is.

We got in one last shot for posterity’s sake:

In which I am, for once, NOT the shortest person in the photo!

Again and again, I find myself so grateful for the opportunity to do something which gets me to visit places I might never have seen and meet folks I’d never have encountered.

The news is so often full of bad things and bad people or good people doing bad things or having bad things happen to them. It’s just an emotional relief sometimes to get to be a part of something which is nothing but positive. Nothing but hope and love.