Ethical Wedding: Lindsay & Joey's Rooftop Rites

With a move in the works and a baby on the way, my busy best friend and her wonderful partner planned and executed their spur-of-the-moment, DIY Brooklyn nuptials in just two weeks! With no time (or funds) to reserve a venue or hire a caterer, Lindsay and Joey instead emphasized what was really important to them on their wedding day: being surrounded by loving friends and family. 

The Happy Couple Family:

Lindsay, craftswoman and restaurant ma nager
Joey, photojournalist and web designer
Mary, seven months in utero!

When and Where They Tied the Knot:

Sunday, June 29, 2008,
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY.

What Made Their Wedding Unique:

When I first heard, two weeks beforehand, that they were planning to get married, I was sitting at Lindsay's kitchen table while she sewed trim onto her dress. "Where are you going to do it?" I asked."Oh, I dunno," she replied. "We were thinking maybe Coney Island?"

Here I am, taking a year and a half to plan my local, sustainable, personal, communitarian, ethical wedding, and sitting across from me is my brilliant, creative, beautiful, tattooed, pregnant best-friend-since-preschool, doing the same thing in a couple of weeks. Really puts all this wedding stuff in perspective.

Lindsay made her dress, Joey lined up a skilled friend to take pictures; they asked a friend who was ordained online to officiate, sent out a Facebook invitation to a few friends, ordered simple rings from Etsy, invited any family members interested in making an impromptu trip to New York (their families are from Atlanta and and Kentucky, respectively)...and mostly left the rest of it to chance. "Is there anything you want me to do to help out?" I queried.

"Wanna make a cake?" Lindsay replied.

"Sure! Do you want me to make you a bouquet or  anything?"

"If you want, that would be awesome."

"What kind of cake do you want?"

She and Joey exchanged grins. "Red velvet."

 

Jeremy and I showed up at their apartment building (just a few blocks from ours) a couple hours early, bearing a bouquet, head wreath, boutonnière, and a three-tiered red velvet cake. (They had also invited us to read something during the ceremony, so we had spent the previous couple of hours scrambling through our poetry collection, trying to find just the right thing.) We climbed the four flights of stairs to their apartment and entered to a flurry of hugs and welcomes.  Parents were already sipping wine and cold beer; a fan hummed against the summer heat. Lindsay and Joey were cuddling and kissing as he buttoned his shirt and she arranged her homemade jewelry; then they secluded themselves in the bedroom for a five-minute rehearsal with their officiant Davesh. I went to make room in the fridge for the cake and flowers. We were all sweaty and happy.

Ominous clouds suggested the beach was a bad idea, so plans were amended, guests were contacted, and we went up to location B - the roof! - for a photo session. I helped Joey with his boutonnière and crowned Lindsay with flowers from my next-door-neighbor's garden; she was radiantly beautiful.

At sunset, after all the (thirty or so) guests had arrived and gathered in the steamy little living room, Davesh signaled that everyone should grab a candle (the room was lit with them) and head upstairs to the roof - the procession was solemn, but busting with love and camaraderie, a feeling of closeness. Out in the cool night air, we arranged our candles in a semi-circle around Lindsay and Joey; the firelight reflected in the puddles studding the roof's surface, lingering from an earlier storm. The pair of them glowed, radiating their own light.

The ceremony was swift and sweet. Davesh spoke gently about his friendship with Lindsay and Joey, what good people they were, what a good match, what good parents they will be together. I read an unassuming poem about love by a local poet, June Jordan; as a tribute to both the wedding day and to future-baby Mary, Jeremy read one by Pablo Neruda that begins,

Today, this day was a brimming cup,
today, this day was the immense wave,
today it was all the earth.

...and ends,

Between you and me a new door opened
and someone, still faceless,
was waiting for us there.

Then they exchanged fairly traditional vows, rings, and a sweet kiss. Our whoops and applause rang out over the Brooklyn rooftops, emanating from that one little island of fire, love and friendship.



Champagne and celebrating followed downstairs, along with some cake, which was really very good. ;)

*   *   *

 There are so many things I want to take from this wedding for my own - community, friendship, simplicity, participation, creativity, spontaneity. It was so obvious how beloved the two of them were by everyone around them, and that made it feel like a ceremony of commitment between all of us! Lindsay and Joey, thank you both for a warm and wonderful night, and may your lives - all three of them! - be filled with that same love and kinship. ♥

Show Me More!: I don't have access to the photos taken by the photographer - but if you want to see more of the ones I took, you can visit my Facebook album. :)

Comments

[sara]

i love the story of this wedding! how beautiful. this is a great website and i plan to visit it much, as i plan my own ethical wedding.

i have a technical question for you... i am ordained online, too, and have been asked to officiate at the wedding of friends way out on long island. i live in PA, where it is easy to do these marriages b/c of the quaker marriage license... but i am concerned about the legality of this marriage. do you have any idea of what the NY laws are about or how to make sure this is "legit?" just curious... thanks for any info you can provide.

[Ilana]

Hi Kate,

You don't know me, but I stumbled upon your blog as my boyfriend and I started to plan our own ethical wedding out here in Berkeley, CA.

I just wanted to drop a line to let you know that much of what you are writing resonates with us. We, too, deliberated about getting married at all (given the many gay couples we know who are struggling to gain that right). And, we, too, are working hard to make sure that our wedding ceremony and reception is in line with our values -- that is how we want to begin our journey as a married couple. It's not always easy and seeing these photos of your friends' wedding is a good reminder of what really matters.

Good luck with your planning. I'll keep reading to see how you two are doing with this effort.

- Ilana

[Christine Gallagher]

Hi,

Such a sweet story, I have kept track of you since my contest. How is your planning going? Select a photographer yet? I still have your date open :)

[Desaray]

So great to see you blogging again!

Awesome!

Keep it up (pleasepleaseplease)

[Alex A.]

Wow. I got misty-eyed with this one. What a lovely, love-filled, love story... and what a beautiful little wedding. I hope, if I ever get married, mine will be just like that.
In other news, you have to let The World know how the planning is going! And: Hi Jeremy!

[michelle]

wow what a cute wedding. I want to have mine look like yours! I'm planning things out and I already some beautiful jewelry on http://www.idonowidont.com/newsite.php for me to wear down the isle, or maybe on a cute rooftop idea like yours!

[Mara]

Love the candles!

[Havanah]

Really cute and awesome wedding. I do planning to have a wedding like that. I think my boyfriend is going to like the idea too.

[Nicole]

I love this story. It warms my little heart.

[Wedding Band]

This is a really nice posting about a truly interesting wedding. I enjoyed reading this a lot I must say. :)