Every year as June rolls around, brides and grooms take center stage in churches, backyards, and even campgrounds.
Often the venue of the wedding and reception reflect the characters of the people who planned it.
Last weekend, much of my family drove south to Walton, Oregon, for three nights to attend the wedding of my niece, a teacher who lives in Woodland and married a man from Washougal. She wanted a wedding in the woods at a campground — Camp Lane. My husband sliced a hundred one-inch rounds from Douglas fir trees she used as placemats at the reception. Family, friends, and the bridal party gathered early to help with preparations for the big event, three years in the planning.
A few days earlier, my husband and I joined others at the Centralia Church of the Nazarene to see longtime Centralia friend, Dave Hoel, marry his sweetheart, Carin Haldy. Again, the church ceremony, where they braided cords representing the bride, the groom, and God, represented their characters. The couple left copies of old postcards on the tables for people to jot down memories of the bride and groom.
We recently celebrated the 27th anniversary of our wedding, which took place at St. Francis Xavier Mission in 1991 with a home-cooked meal during the reception afterward at the Cowlitz Prairie Grange. I attended Mass at St. Francis Saturday evening, awed that nearly three decades had passed since we had said “I do.” Where does the time go?
My stepdaughter and her husband celebrated their 10th anniversary, so we spent three nights caring for our granddaughter while they escaped to the beach. Their wedding and reception took place in his brother’s backyard.
My kids will never forget the wedding of Ted Fay and veterinarian Brandy Mauel at the home of her parents, Ron and Penny Mauel, on Hamilton Road near Chehalis July 23, 2005. Guests rode to the wedding site on trailers pulled by John Deere tractors and sat on hay bales during the ceremony. Fireworks exploded when they were pronounced man and wife and the reception followed in a new shop next to a big red barn.
In contrast, my flight attendant sister, whose husband later became a pilot, married at a Catholic church in Los Angeles with a fancy reception afterward at the elegant Crown Plaza hotel near the airport.
According to Centralia: The First Fifty Years, the first wedding in the settlement took place in 1847, when German immigrant George Leonard Waunch married Harriet Jane Ford, who was born May 15, 1826, in New York. Unfortunately, that marriage didn’t last. After their divorce about 1851, Waunch married a woman named Mary, who was 28 years younger than him, and they raised a family on the north Centralia prairie that bears his name. On May 27, 1852, Harriet Jane married Samuel Henry Williams.
The first wedding in the Jackson Courthouse at Mary’s Corner took place in 1852, according to a Sept. 8, 1941, write-up by Donna Tisdale (now Donna Taylor). The 14-year-old daughter of early settler Elkanah Mills, Mary Jane, married her father’s best friend, Robert Brown, a New York native who was about 27. Tisdale wrote that Mills and Brown had helped Jackson and his stepsons, Henry and Barton Koontz, build the courthouse, and Mills served on the first jury trial there. The Browns settled in the Skookumchuck area and proceeded to raise a large family there.
When you look at marriage, you realize the importance of picking the right mate, a person likely to be by your side for decades, through good times and bad, sickness and health, until death do you part.
The late Paul Harvey used to spotlight couples who had celebrated 70 years together. It’s awe-inspiring to see those couples, many of whom met in grade school or high school. Only 7 percent of couples hit the half-century mark, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University. Of course, some don’t live long enough to celebrate 50 years of marriage. But what keeps couples together when up to 50 percent of U.S. couples today call it quits?
According to a Feb. 11, 2016, Washington Post article, the secrets of long-lasting marriages stem from picking wisely — reliable, responsible, resilient and honest partners who share core values on religion, sex, parenting, money and family. They also expect their marriage to last forever, so leaving when times turn tough isn’t an option. The article said long-term couples also focus on keeping their marriage interesting. Love, respect, trust, and humor are essentials, according to four long-term couples featured in the article. And … they’re best friends.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
