Hi everyone! If you read my earlier post, “An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg,” you’ll know how I met my soulmate, John Boone. And it all led up to our wedding on Saturday, July 17, 2021. Have I got a story – and video! – for you!

John and I agreed to have a very small wedding. This would help prevent Covid fears and also keep costs down. We would be six people, we decided: Read (minister and nicest man you can imagine), Julia (friend/musical director/singer-songwriter), Gary (friend/best man/witness/musician), and Kathryn (my daughter/maid of honour/witness/all-round brilliant/helpful/tech-savvy person).

Kathryn, John, Read, & myself in the office!

Julia with John

Gary

And yes, I’m barefoot! My shoes were killing me, dang it! (Sound familiar, Ellen Moss?!) So in the beginning – we were to have our ceremony in one of the small rooms where Sunday-school classes are held. A very creative church member, Christine Tatarewicz, and her husband Ashley Verhaeghe helped tidy up the room, move toys and kiddie furniture aside, so the room would be decorated. Here’s what the finished area looked like when they were done:

If you’re wondering what’s in the basket on the left: Chris had also baked a special Polish “wedding” bread for us, as well as little packages of Polish “Crustie” for the wedding party, each labelled with everyone’s name and tied up with curly ribbons. So nice, Chris! And delicious! A basketful of goodies!

So: as Robbie  Burns once wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men/Gang aft agley”… and so our plans went awry, alright. We had technical glitches galore. Why? This was a Zoom wedding! With videos and live music to be interspersed throughout the ceremony. We planned everything to a T. Except… we didn’t realize the WiFi wouldn’t be robust enough to reach that little room, which was up some stairs down a hallway up more stairs across a big room down a hall through two doorways etc.  You get the picture? The router outside the sanctuary wasn’t close enough to manage our needs. Perhaps a full rehearsal would’ve told us this! (We’d had just a shortened one and it was okay – but it didn’t include Zoom guests! 😬😉😁) Anyway, we cheered poor Gary on as he tried to get Zoom guests back online… the first video started… but then… Here’s a taste of us waiting while the problem was being worked on. 

So finally, sadly, we were forced to bid “adieu” to that cute little room and move alllll our stuff into – voila! The Church Office! As seen up at the top, here it is again!

All went pretty swimmingly from then on, only teensy glitches here and there. The best most amazing thing by far – I mean, apart from John’s vows and mine, and the ring exchange, and the kiss and – LOL, well, was this incredible video and song written and sung by Julia Budd, all cleverly edited together! It’s my pleasure to share it with you here. It tells the story of how my Facebook friendship with John became our Real-Life love story and marriage! Please sit back and enjoy!

Fantastic Labour of Love, Julia! Thank you so much!

Other videos we included were: “Give a Little Bit (of your love to me)” by Roger Hodgson of Supertramp; “Lean on Me” – a great cover of the Bill Withers song, done by John Fogerty and his children; and a beautiful audio recording of Keith Urban covering “To Love Somebody” (it was from a BeeGees tribute show). All may be found on YouTube. [Note on the Fogerty song – we edited out his speech before using it, since it was too long.]

Another musical highlight was the live performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” by Julia Budd on piano keyboard and Gary Tompkins on guitar, right there with us in the little office. It was delightful! This will be in a final recording of our whole ceremony including all videos. But first we need to edit it and smooth out the glitches! 😀

Thanks so much to one and all who helped us celebrate. You are precious people! And thanks to the kind members of Trinity United Church here in Rosemont, Montreal, Quebec, for their hospitality and support.

Here’s a last bunch o’ photos of the aftermath in the office. Later we went to a Portuguese restaurant (Casa Vinho) where we six were treated to a divine wedding feast by wonderful daughter Kathryn, and by son Jeremy and daughter-in-law Lucy (who were stuck down in New York due to Covid rules).

Thank you sooooo much, everybody!!

P.S. – I almost forgot!!! One of the wedding rings got lost when we switched rooms! We looked all over but couldn’t find it. Read said I could use one of his rings if it would fit, as a temporary solution and that’s what we were going to do – but then – finally!! Kathryn and Julia found my ring on the floor under the table…! We were very relieved!!