Tying the knot at Port Oneida and dancing with llamas

He proposed to her on Labor Day weekend a year ago while crouched in a canoe floating in a wilderness lake in Canada. And when they paddled back to the dock minutes later, and after the surprise was announced and the champagne was opened, the boys stripped him down to his birthday suit and threw him into the lake. For ritualistic pagans they were.

So the bride and groom — we’ll call him Thor for his Nordic roots, and her Rachel for her Old Testament name — knew they needed to plan an earthy wedding this fall that would satisfy the Gods of the four natural elements, and showcase the land where they had grown up, for their families and friends traveling from afar to witness.

Thor and Rachel married on a Saturday in early September with a ceremony that sought to both honor their families’ Christian heritage and celebrate their more secular, environmental spirituality. The wedding was held outside, in front of the one-room Port Oneida Schoolhouse in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service) north of Glen Arbor. She wore a biscuit-colored, silk chiffon dress by Vera Wang with a feather adorning her dark, curly hair. He wore a vintage tan linen suit that he purchased for a steal on eBay.

SarahJacobWedding2.jpgThe ceremony was witnessed by approximately 200 onlookers and led by two officials with distinct spiritual paths — Pastor Jim Vargo, a Lutheran minister in Traverse City whose congregation includes the bride’s parents and grandmother, and Anne-Marie Oomen, a local writer, poet and teacher who Thor counts as a spiritual guide through more than a decade of sauna gatherings and feasts.

After welcoming the guests and asking the parents of the bride and groom to accept each into their own family, Vargo and Oomen alternated their readings, interspersed with music by guitarists Laura Hood and Patrick Niemisto, Crispin Campbell on cello, and vocals by the bride’s older sister, Gretchen Eichberger-Kudlack. Vargo’s readings included: a translation of Thomas Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ”; an African proverb about the longevity of marriage, and “Song of Songs,” the excerpt from the Bible that, nearly erotic at times, best captures human love.

Oomen read: a poem by Aristophanes; an excerpt from Robert Haas’ wedding poetry anthology, “Into the Garden,” which finds commonalities in wedding celebrations through the ages, through cultures, nationalities and religions; part of her play, “A Stone that Rises,” about the naming of Port Oneida, while Campbell accompanied her with “Hard Times Come Again No More” on cello, and she finished with her original poem, “The Field,” loosely based on Thor and Rachel meeting for the first time in a field at the Dunegrass Festival eight years ago.

Backed by the musicians, Gretchen Eichberger-Kudlack performed a tear-jerking rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which became the recessional once her lyrics concluded. Dozens of faces in the crowd suddenly sported sunglasses even though the sun was largely a stranger that afternoon.

And through it all, nature interacted with the human theatrics unfolding on the schoolhouse steps. The Gods had pelted down rain the night before the afternoon ceremony, but took pity on the wedding party and, save for distant thunder during key moments in the readings, granted the celebration their blessing. A grasshopper crawled halfway up Oomen’s left arm during her animated reading from “A Stone that Rises,” but the intruder seemingly went unnoticed by her.

Just after Thor and Rachel completed their self-written vows to each other, a gust of wind arrived and attempted to steal the tablecloth nearby where the champagne was to be served after the ceremony. But the motley crew of groomsmen — a bike shop poet, a food snob, an urban social worker, a techie with exquisite taste in t-shirts, and a trustworthy member of the Army Reserves — got there just in time.

The getaway car, an MG leant by Mike Buhler, co-owner of the local coffee shop, waited on the road in front of the schoolhouse. The bride’s older brother Karl had attached a “Just Married” sign above the license plate and tied a couple cans to drag on the ground behind the car. But when Thor and Rachel neared the car after a delayed kiss and their recessional walk through the crowd, they froze and looked to each other, unsure of what to do next (remember the final scene in “The Graduate,” just after the shotgun wedding?). Instead of speeding away in bliss, they pivoted left and headed for the champagne table.

All around them gathered a beautiful coterie of friends, family, artists and hipsters from all over the country and the world, who had been descending on northern Michigan (some for the first time) since the wedding festivities began on Thursday night. Four Danish relatives, Kirsten, Benny, Ove and Kira, were flown in to prepare the liver pate and the marzipan cake with recipes from the old country, and a member of the Copenhagen paparazzi, Lars, was there too, with wavy hair, tuxedo pants and a red flame shirt; a biologist named Paul made the journey from Scotland, with a bottle of nectar from the highlands in his hip pocket; an English-Algerian beauty named Kat, whom the bride and groom knew from their days in Central America, showed up; but the most miles were logged by Naseem, a Harvard student who hadn’t slept since he left Goa, India (the birthplace of techno music) the previous Wednesday.

Cousin Phil from Greenwich, Conn. was there, missing his first U.S. Open since the days of Aggasi-Sampras; the philanthropic videographers, Caricia and Anthony (he performed a barn-burning freestyle rap during the open mic in Echo Valley the night before) had just escaped New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the bayou; Leif and Cilla got the hell out of Minneapolis before McCain took the podium on Thursday, and drove through the Upper Peninsula with their Guatemalan adoptee Mateo; the bride’s best friend Kate flew in from the sweet pastures of Humboldt County, Calif.

… not to mention sister Julia (also the groom’s best man!) and Martin from the Twin Cities, Amanda from North Carolina, Katie and Jordan from Toronto, sister Anne from D.C., Elara, John and Clint from Frankfort, Dan and Becca from Philly, Eric and Nicole from New Jersey, Evan from Portland, Chris from L.A., Tim from San Francisco, Abby and Kenny from Seattle, Great uncle Jimmy from Detroit (though one would have thought Sicily), Uncle Ralph from Tampa, several carloads of Chicagoans who stayed at the Cottonwood Inn in Empire, and last but not least, the senior member of the troupe, the 90-year-old constant gardener, Grandma Moon (“Bella Luna,” as Pastor Jim called her) from Old Mission Peninsula. Her beautiful watercolor rendition of the schoolhouse was used as the cover of the wedding invitations.

Thor and Rachel, and the official wedding photographer Debra Townsend, took a few newlywed photos on the beach at the end of Thoreson Road, and at 5:45 p.m. the MG climbed the hill toward the Snow Moon Ranch llama and alpaca farm, off Bow Road in Burdickville, for their grand entrance into the reception. He donned a straw hat, which they figured appropriate for a country party, and her “wolfy” blue eyes glistened with emotion and delight (as Paul Simon sang, “she moved like a bride”). They entered the barn and then exited into the field where the white party tent was pitched, to “Spanish Flee” performed on trumpets by her brother Karl and his father Norm.

And thus the party began — with emotional toasts, ethnic appetizers (somosas, tamales, nori rolls and dolmades, prepared by local friends), local food catered by Suze McLaughlin (fresh sweet corn, eggplant stackers, asiago chicken sausage, black bean tostadas), wine from the Cedar City Market, Bell’s Oberon from Art’s Tavern, rockin’ roots music by the dashing Luke Winslow-King and his band, The Loose Marbles (of the Earthworks collective), an elegant and tasty wedding carrot cake in white frosting by Nancy Miller, biscottis by Kate Cenci, the marzipan “kransekage” groom’s cake by Kirsten Lorentzen, sea-salt caramel and goat-cheese fig truffles (the bride’s favorites) from Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate as favors, and DJ Dick Tazer’s hits that carried the party into the wee hours.

As the curious beasts of burden sauntered over to the tent to investigate exactly what kind of harvest was happening in their home pasture, the bride and groom tried their best to spend at least a couple minutes with each guest in attendance (impossible, of course). By and by, the meticulous planning that had characterized the ceremony at Port Oneida gave way to wondrous spontaneity at the reception. At one point the chorus broke into the Jewish wedding song “Hava Nagila” and lifted the bride and groom, sitting in plastic chairs, up toward the tent ceiling. When they returned to earth, Thor smashed the customary wedding glass wrapped in paper towel with his foot.

For their goal on this day was a celebration that honored all faiths. Yes, their roots were Christian, but his practice was spiritual Pagan (they had also attended Unitarian churches, on occasion) and their friends in the audience were Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Quakers, agnostics and hippies. And as they danced into the night, they did so on the same soil, under the same stars, as their ancestors.

Sarah Jane Eichberger and (Glen Arbor Sun founding editor) Jacob Royal Wheeler tied the knot on September 6, 2008. “Mr. and Mrs. Sarah Eichberger” would like to thank everyone in the community who helped out. Without you, such a celebration wouldn’t have been possible.