I had been engaged to officiate at a destination wedding in Cooperstown, New York, this past June. The couple had met at a college reunion and were totally delightful. The bride’s parents met at a Harvard-Princeton football game – the father, Jewish American, and the mother, Ecuadorian Catholic. They were holding this wedding in the town that is known to all baseball fans as the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I visited the entire family at the parents’ home in New Jersey and was welcomed with warmth and grace, served a delicious brunch, and given a tour of the father’s fabulous antique collection in their amazing Victorian house. The couple and I met in Boston several months later to write the service. (I coincidentally was going there for Thanksgiving, and that is where they lived and worked.) We met again in NYC, so this was a three-state affair.
The day before the wedding, I arrived in Cooperstown and toured the Baseball Hall of Fame. The weather was picture-perfect, cloudless blue sky. The ceremony the next day was due to be outdoors on a grassy lawn overlooking a magnificent lake. All preparations were perfect except for a good weather forecast. We had the rehearsal dinner and enjoyed the clear night sky filled with stars.
The day of the wedding dawned cloudy and showery. The wedding planner at the venue said they would decide on outdoor or indoor (with a large tent) at 3pm. When that time arrived with no rain they proceeded to set up the chairs outside. Of course, the inevitable happened – as soon as the procession was over, the soft rain came.
What an unusual sight – the wedding party and I under the chuppah and a sea of umbrellas in every color of the rainbow in front of me. A kaleidoscope of color. As I proceeded with the service, we used an Ecuadorian custom in which family well-wishers came forward to offer blessings, similar to the Sheva Brachot in the Jewish religion.
As the groom was putting his foot down to break the glass, the heavens opened up. A deluge in response to the Mazel Tov, and everyone made a run for the tent. Ironically, one of the poems I had decided to use was a Native American poem entitled “Now there will be no rain.” Little did I know how appropriate this would turn out to be.