Date: December 7, 2002
Place: Gwen’s Sister’s House on the shore of Shelburne Bay, Lake Champlain in Brrrrrlington, Vermont
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Wind southerly @ 10-15 knots, Temperature 29 degrees F
In Attendance: 25 family members
Officiant: Patty McWilliams
Witnesses: Greg Wilson for the Groom; Tiffany Wilson for the Bride
Giving the bride away: Gwen’s brother-in-law Bob Wells, who married one sister and inherited all three!

Event: THE TWO CAPTAINS TIE THE KNOT

Wedding Menu Hot spiced cider Bar nuts (pecans, walnuts, cashews & hazelnuts, roasted with butter, rosemary, cayenne & brown sugar) Cheesy puff pastry straws Vegetable platter served with 3 dips – hummus, curry w/mango chutney, and honey mustard VT cheese [latter served with dried fruit & country bread Basil & sun-dried tomato cheese loaf Roasted turkey served with orange cranberry sauce & small rolls Smoked salmon served with mustard dill sauce & black bread Phyllo triangles with three fillings: wild mushroom, spinach & feta cheese, and lobster Chicken & tofu satay with peanut sauce Wine, beer, rum Wedding cake & champagne

PMcW: Welcome, everyone, friends, family. Today we come together to witness and celebrate the marriage of Gwen & Don. All of us here know that each of these individuals has lead full and rewarding lives on their own.

In marriage, however, two persons turn to each other in search of a greater fulfillment than either can achieve alone. It is risking what we have been for the sake of what we yet can be, of where we’ve been for where we can yet go together.

Gwen and Don, who have stood separately for many years, who have sailed for seven in partnership, come now in our presence to join their courses permanently and completely through the union of marriage. Gwen and Don ask you to know that they do not enter the state of marriage lightly, but with humble respect for the magnitude of the step they are taking. ******* (see below)********

Gwen, Don, make your relationship one in which the independence is equal, the dependence is mutual, and the love reciprocal. Remember that standing together never means dissolving your individual selves into each other, but indeed means the strengthening of the individuality of each. Do you come in this spirit to give your vows of marriage?

Gwen & Don: We do.

Gwen: I take you, Don, to be my friend and lover,
To be a source of strength in trouble and a partner of joy in times of happiness,
To be my husband forever.

Don: I take you, Gwen, to be my friend and lover,
To be a source of strength in trouble and a partner of joy in times of happiness,
To be my wife forever.

PMcW: What tokens do you have that will serve to symbolize this bond which you now make to each other?

Gwen & Don: These rings.

PMcW: The circle is a symbol of many things. It is a symbol of the sun, the earth, and the universe. It is a symbol of wholeness, consistency and peace. Your rings have been made to capture the enduring nature of the earth’s water cycle – the sun, the moon, the rains, the oceans – particularly apt symbols of your love, which, which like the water cycle, shall have no end. May these rings be testimonies of unity and promise. (Gwen and Don place rings on fingers.)

PMcW: May the course you sail together through life be filled with joy.

By the power invested in me by the State of Vermont, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

(*****Midway through the ceremony, the emotion of the moment was much lightened when the three dogs present – Tiffany’s Yorkie Tyson and Patty & Doyle’s Corgies Farley and Tucker – spied through the glass doors a fat orange cat sauntering casually through the back yard! The resulting hubbub caused a brief interruption. Hence all the smirks in the photos!)

Catering by: Carol McWilliams Gibson, of Hartland Vermont
Cake by: Allison Lane of Mirabelle’s, Burlington Vermont
Rings by: Bill Butler, Nature & Myth Jewelry Designs, Jericho, Vermont
Flowers by: Annie Agan of The Cottage Garden in No. Ferrisburg
Photographs by: Adam Reisner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The week prior to THE BIG DAY brought the earliest snows to hit the northeast in years and two days after THE BIG DAY the mercury was back down to the single digits with flurries flying. THE BIG DAY itself, however, dawned sunny and mild, well … relatively speaking.

What were the Two Captains, self-avowed tropical flowers, doing tying any kind of knot in such a time and place? Or, you might ask, at all?

Obviously, the second question begs answering first. Although we met in December 1993, only moments after Don threw his docklines ashore in St. Thomas, we didn’t “become a couple” until the stressful hurricane season of 1995. In 1996, while Tackless II recuperated in the boatyard, Don came aboard my boat Whisper as crew, and as, he observed several months later, in the hustle and bustle of a busy charter season, he didn’t actually realize he’d “moved in” with me for some time!

That we got on well together in the charter milieu was easy to see, but would we be so compatible on our own? We tested it in the summer of 1997 when we took four months off and masqueraded as regular cruisers south through the Caribbean to Trinidad and back. We found we liked it right fine…with the sole issue that Don was not willing to continue indefinitely as “crew”. Hence, the birth of the Two Captains, and our even/odd day system.

The 2Cs now have been together for seven years. And “together” for boaters is more “together” than for average folks. Back in our charter days, Don used to tell our guests – who often observed that we were more married than most married people – that boat years count like dog years. In other words, a mere year working and living together 24/7 in the close confines of a forty-four foot boat equals the proximity of seven land-lubber years!

However you count it, we were not unhappy with our unmarried status. The cruising community is hardly judgmental in such matters; indeed at a potluck dinner, it would be very hard to pick married from not-married, and then you’d as likely be wrong! For us, the idea was something that evolved gradually. We used to say we’d get married on some South Pacific atoll with the chief officiating and the crowd toasting, perhaps with a bowl of kava. But, what with our course diversions in the Eastern Pacific these last two years, the South Pacific was getting farther and farther way in time rather than closer.

And finally it hit us. If we got married on that atoll, indeed even if we got married in Mexico, the chance of a good family showing was realistically pretty low. Besides, exotic locales are an everyday matter for us, and in our lifestyle, friends, as good as many are, come and go and could never all assemble in any one place at one time, anyway. In the final analysis, we realized what would matter most to us would be to have our families present.

The next step was the where and when. I have always thought my sister Jo’s place on Lake Champlain was a fine place for a small wedding. A finer view – combining the lake and layered mountains in one – couldn’t possibly exist. Of course, I was thinking August in the back yard! How the date came to be December had much to do with the availability of the Justice of the Peace, my own best friend and cousin Patty McW, who had been warning us for years that her term was going to expire soon. Soon turned out to be January 2003.

We were already planning to be Stateside for the holidays this year. On our calendar, December 7 was a Saturday that looked far enough before the Christmas frenzy that we might be able to get people to come. On the other hand, it was close enough to the holidays that nieces and nephews with kids of their own wouldn’t have to make the long trip because we would see them and celebrate at Christmas. We’ll admit it; we spaced the fact that it was Pearl Harbor Day….the “Day that Will Live in Infamy.” Well, okay. It was all adding up to the “cold day in hell” that Don always said he would next get married!

All in all it worked just as we hoped. Don’s daughter Tiffany and her fiancé Derek flew in from LA, as did his brother Greg (who wasn’t going to miss this chance to “witness a miracle”) and his wife Karen from Valparaiso. Don parents drove from Indianapolis with Don’s Aunt Margaret. Closer at hand, my other sister Cecily, brother-in-law Bob and nephew Gregg drove up from Boston, while my Vermont cousins all were able to make it a day trip. Even my Aunt Jo, 83 years old, drove herself up from Massachusetts for the event! Plus, my niece Louisa and her husband Paul surprised us by flying up from Texas and Jamaica respectively.

But what took the day to an even more special level was the teamwork that brought it about. Tiffany, planning her own wedding for next May, really helped me get my ideas organized and underway, even to hand-making invitations. My sister Cecily hunted for the right dress, and she and Bob not only hosted the night before dinner for all the out-of-towners, but provided all the flowers. Don’s brother Greg brought him fourteen ties to choose from (of which Don wore three.) My cousin Carol, recently graduated from New England Culinary School, consented to cater and coordinate, and her professional handle on things was invaluable. The truly memorable cake was a gift from Patty and her husband Doyle Lane, whose daughter Allison runs the wonderful bakery/restaurant Mirabelle’s in downtown Burlington. And last, but hardly least, my sister Jo made her great home available for the weekend, using us as an excuse to install a coveted fireplace door set, behind which we kept a fire burning the whole time we were there! My family team along with my friend Lisa of sv Lady Galadriel -- who spent days with me in several Sea of Cortez anchorages helping to put together four hours of great romantic music -- is truly what made the event so special. All I did was coordinate by email, for which I have to thank all the amateur radio folk who make the Winlink Radio email system work so miraculously!!!!

The day was beautiful, the food wonderful, the bride and groom happy and just a wee bit emotional. The families mingled and the doggies entertained, and there was even a little dancing (less, of course than I wanted, but more than I expected given I’d sprained my ankle the week before (as had Justice of the Peace Patty!)) The photographs by Adam Reisner came out great, and we thanked the stars we had opted to have a pro in charge, as there were the usual battery failures throughout the crowd.

Now that the wedding and the holidays are over, Don and I are back aboard Tackless II and ready to start our honeymoon. We figure it should last the next ten years or so!