The Wedding

Alexander Krawarik and Summer Locke

October 20, 2003

The wedding was to be such a "small affair”. One can summarize it: " the wedding miraculously took place” but the HOW and the WHERE is worth a short story.

It seemed a good idea to use the time of our visit to Seattle, to gather the immediate family some from AZ, grandmother from OR to get the wedding squared away. At a later point there are receptions planned in Arizona and in Seattle for friends and relatives who live around these areas.  For the ceremony Summer and Alexander had chosen an area near Mazama called Washington Pass. There is a look out point so spectacular it takes your breath away and what was the important part, one could drive to it by car. The person to officiate the ceremony lives in that area. Should anything turn sour with the weather the alternative was still the nice hotel porch in a lovely setting in the woods. Although the place is at high altitude and it was already quite cold Summer insisted that she would wear Grand Ma’s lace wedding gown and stand in the cold for twenty minutes or longer. Since both hike and climb and this also on ice we thought: "well they must know what they can endure".

A few days before the "big event" we got word that the access road to the look out point was closed. Not knowing how long this road was they decided we all could walk there, but for Grand Ma a wheelchair was rented. We were supposed to all meet on Sunday in the late morning at Alexander's and Summer's house in Seattle to go up to Mazama in a convoy of three cars. On Saturday we got word that Route 20 over the Washington Pass, which would have taken 3 1/2 hours to get to Mazama, was closed due to heavy rains and washouts.  Now we had to take a detour, which took 5 1/2 hours. Taking into consideration that Summer’s mother, brother and grandmother had already driven up from Portland this detour was a bit of an extra hike. They had driven one day before all the way from Phoenix and had slept at Grandmother’s in Portland and picked her up. Carolina and the partner of Summer’s deceased father flew in from Phoenix. On that Sunday morning Summer had picked up the guests from the airport and had gotten buckets of flowers from the Pikes Place Market which we took up to Mazama to decorate the place where the wedding would take place.

So we drove to Mazama, arrived a bit late and had a very nice dinner in front of a roaring fire in a cozy rustic dining room. Only a few would still go into the Jacuzzi at about midnight because it had been a long day. Next day, October 20th, we were supposed to gather for brunch and then have the wedding in the early afternoon. But the officiant had a court appointment in Seattle in the late morning and had to drive the 5 1/2 hours detour up too. That would have brought us way into the late afternoon with the ceremony.

On that 20^th morning it was raining so hard that just sheets of water came down - there was no change of weather in sight and the idea of having a ceremony even on the hotel porch was swimming away. We came to the decision to leave although the morning had started out so lovely with music being provided by Jackie (2nd mate of Summer’s father) who is a musician, Alexander playing the guitar and we all sang. Some were thinking we could entertain each other till later in the afternoon. I wanted to leave because I had a feeling of urgency and I dreaded the long drive at night over Steven’s pass and also I thought that this would be a bit much for the 85-year-old grandma going two days in a row on such a long tour.

We decided to leave and find the DAROGA State Park, which was to serve as the new place for the ceremony - about half way down - direction Seattle.  Meanwhile Alexander found out that his car had a flat tire.  A spare was mounted in the poring rain and then he drove up to a gas station to buy a new tire. The wedding bouquet which had been ordered by Summer’s mother to be delivered early afternoon had not arrived yet and they had to wait for that.  So Peter, Jackie and I left to find that State Park. We have to say that everybody drove the assigned car and we were driving Summers 4 wheel drive van with all the flower buckets and wiring and pliers (whatever a florists needs to make nice arrangements.) and I think also the musical instruments. In the last moment Summer asked whether I would mind if I already started to work on the   flower decorations which we wanted to stick into the ground (we even had an electric drill because we were told that the ground at that Look out Point was very hard but of course we never saw it) I sat in the back seat and started working with wires and pliers and bamboo sticks to make those bouquets - I had set up a florist shop in my back seat grabbing from the back what came into my hands. 

After two hours of driving we arrived at the State Park to find out it was CLOSED.  Peter immediately cell phoned Alexander to tell him the news.  We tried to find out whether we could walk in to a picnic place.  Jacky hiked in and called to two people who were riding in a truck, they shouted back and drove on. There was a lone house in the area with a light on the porch so I started in that direction to encounter a living soul in the middle of nowhere.  But then I saw two women getting out of that truck down a hill.  l ran towards them - after all there were humans here I thought . They already shouted to me from afar:  ”Mam the park is closed!”  I probably looked like a charging bull - but I admit I was desperate.  So I made them listen to my story, it was short and condensed and a plea for help. They took pity on me and said they would call the rangers. I offered that the lady they had first encountered could relate the story in perfect English but they insisted that I relate the story to the rangers exactly as I had told it to them.  Then two guys appeared, got out of their truck and I almost fell to my knees.  I told them about the snags we had encountered due to bad weather -- that we want to have our kids married – that we are only 9 people including bride and groom and that  now we need a miracle and they could be part of that miracle if they could help. THEY DID HELP!

They said they would open the South entrance further down but we would have no water or toilette facilities but we had a covered picnic place.  Hallelujah - We called the rest of the party about the miracle, which was happening. Alexander contacted the officient who was on his way up from Seattle, to tell him about the new location.

Within a short period of time all the others arrived. We started to stick our flour bunches into the soft ground, no drill needed It was drizzling.  Summer dressed between two open car doors umbrella held over her and we also dressed in the car.  Grand mom who was dressed up since the morning sat in the picnic place and was quietly weaving some additional flowers into summers wedding wreath while Jacky posted herself into a corner to play some Indian tunes on her flute. Then came the carpet. Linda, Summer’s mother had painted on a piece of a 30 yard long canvass with yellow daisies, had dragged it all the way up in her truck from Arizona then loaded in to her mother’s station wagon and now it was unrolled to have the bridal couple walk on it in style.  Even the meanwhile arrived officiant helped tape the carpet together. Carolina documented the whole procedure.  As one can see everybody had a part in this without having discussed it beforehand - it just was a creative process where everybody played their part as if it had been rehearsed.

Now I sent another prayer to haven to ask to have the rain stop just for a little while – and it stopped raining so the ceremony could take place outside in front of the wonderful autumn scenery - you even could touch the clouds. THEN Alexander and Summer exchanged their wedding wows and it was a miraculous moment and shall last forever .

The drive home took a long time. It was pouring all the way. Next day we read in the newspapers that the road we had driven on had to be closed at midnight due to washouts. They had 10 streams overflowing in that area. So we were lucky to have made it home safely.