The Preparation

Linda and Kathryn Huxtable's wedding

We made our dresses ourselves, from simple floor length cotton spring dress patterns. Kathryn's dress was a pale lavender floral print with an oval neckline, a low back and a pleated skirt. The sleeves were three-quarter length and full with two inch lace at the cuffs. Linda's dress was a lavender, blue and green floral print with a sweetheart neckline and a gathered skirt. The sleeves were three-quarter length and full with bishop cuffs. There was narrow lace around the neckline and the cuffs.

The bodices of both dresses had princess seams ending in the armholes. Kathryn had to take her bust in and comments were made by Linda about just using the back pieces. These comments were ignored.

We had matching floral wreaths for our hair.

The ceremony took place in our front room. We made an altar by stacking one coffee table on another and putting a white sheet over them. There was a floral arrangement with snap dragons, lilies, roses and other flowers at the back of the altar.

In front of the floral arrangement we had a platter with vegetables from several different groups: carrots (roots for a strong foundation for our relationship), celery (stems that we may stand firm and proud), spinach (leaves to grow and prosper), cauliflower (flowers representing joy and laughter), and red grapes and oranges (fruits for a long and enduring time together).

There was a decanter of red wine to the back right of the platter and a small plate, an engraved crystal goblet (Kathryn 3-14-1992 or Linda 3-14-1992) and a ring to each side of the platter.

The rings were identical except that Kathryn's was yellow gold and Linda's was white gold. They were set with an amethyst heart on a raised setting framed by two small diamonds with filigree.

We had borrowed folding chairs from our Unitarian Church and set 26 of them them up in a semi-circle around the altar.

Kathryn had written PostScript to make a nice cover for the program we had made.

The day was bright and sunny. Our friend Carol had arrived from Colorado Springs the night before and helped with the setup.

Linda's parents arrived around 1:15 while we were upstairs getting into our dresses. They brought soft drinks, tea, and coffee for the reception and a VCR camcorder to tape the ceremony. Our friends Judy and Denise arrived next. Judy brought food for the reception.

Our photographer, Sandy, arrived and started figuring out where her best angles were for photos. This was somewhat difficult as the room was wide and fairly shallow and full of chairs. Furthermore, we mostly stood on either side of the altar so the angles to get both of us were tricky.

We came down at around 2:10 and started greeting people and forcing them to sign the guest book.

The music was pre-recorded. Kathryn had made a tape a few days previously, leaving about 5 seconds between tracks for the ceremony music and then filling with various lesbian music. We had rigged a semi-remote control for the tape deck so that it could be started and stopped by Judy at appropriate times.

We didn't have the matches ready for lighting our candles we entered with so Kathryn had to get those in a hurry as the prelude music was finishing.

Contact kathryn@kathrynhuxtable.org with questions or comments about this page.

The current URL is http://www.kathrynhuxtable.org/wedding/preparation.shtml
This file was modified Wednesday, 15-Dec-2004 13:00:11 PST