Letters
Postcard from a Wedding
Dear Kay,
Just back from a wedding in North Carolina. So fun.
I keep replaying moments from the weekend. The happy couple were so easy with each other, such a shine on them. So many kind people in the mix. All these young folks telling me about the things they’re doing, the grown ups watching it all with our own thoughts about marriage swirling around in our heads. Weddings are like that: a prism through which everybody sees their own lives, their own families, their own relationships.
It was the wedding of my college roommate’s son. I basically knew nobody there, so I had conversations with tablemates about all sorts of things. It was tempting to say I was an astronaut or a world champion chess master, but I resisted the impulse and steadily told people that the knitting world is where I live most days.
You know how it is: people respond to this declaration in a variety of ways. Without fail, I’m told about grandmothers/aunts/mothers/sisters who knit. Dormant or lapsed knitters say they used to knit or tried to knit. And sometimes I’m met with a quizzical look.
My favorite is when somebody has just discovered knitting. It’s so great to hear this. At the wedding, I knew that there was a new knitter—my roommate’s daughter—who wanted to try her hand at socks, so I took her a Bento Bag with two skeins of sock yarn. I deliberately included the most zoingy shades of Barnyard Knits possible:
I knew she would likely never go for such wild colors on her own, being a low-key sort of person. So I explained that socks are a special kind of knitting, and you don’t really have to follow your normal impulses. They’re all about surprise, the handknit socks.
My roommate knows about surprise. A respectable Methodist minister, she stepped onto the dance floor with her son for their dance together. Aw, sweet moment ahead, right? Few would have guessed that their mother-son moment would be a stupendous booty-busting throwdown to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Shining Star.”
I remember my roommate dancing on tables in college, so this all made total sense to me. It was perfect.
Love,
Ann
Sweet and fun! Thank you for sharing.
Love it! I closed my eyes and I was there!
Special moments like these are Time treasures. Extolling the virtues of knitting is to me a declaration of self care. It’s like going to the she shed. It’s a fact of life and fun. Congratulations to the newly weds and to you.
Thanks for sharing this sweet story!
What fun! And my typically low-key selfI still swoons over my Carnivale socks, so I’m certain she will, too. Brilliant plan’
What a song, what fashion, what dancing!! Those were great bell bottom dancing days, and wonderful that your friends at the wedding brought it back into the celebration!
That’s just what I thought!
Just delightful on this grey, cold morning.
The best kind of wedding. Everyone is happy. Love the song. So upbeat.
But the real question is – was Coop there?
A great memory of music and dancing-so glad to read the couple used it at their wedding. Thanks for sharing
How fun!!!!!
My oldest stepson graduated high school and started college in 2022, and we also attended a close friend’s son’s wedding. It hit me how it is now my contemporaries and I watching on, the older, ‘wiser’ (ha!) generation. We no longer have young children. It’s a strange and bittersweet place to be in life. Seeing the products of our childrearing, and also the efforts of maintaining our own friendships throughout the childrearing years – it’s an amazing time. And we can still bust a move!
When I go back in time on YouTube and watch all the music from my day, the comments read, usually from young people, that “you guys had the best music.”
We did. We had the best music back then.
Always a winner to play our music at a wedding.
Best wishes to the young couple.
A niece’s wedding a few year’s ago required mini buses out to the location of the ceremony and reception. On a return trip, my B-in-L looked at me and asked “How are we now the ones leaving on the first bus?” Loved the image of the mother and son dance!
This took me back to my college and bell-bottom days. I knew how to knit and tried to make a sweater for my boyfriend/ which became a diagonal half- scarf. I put aside all knitting notions until I turned 50. So glad I picked it up again. MDK is one of our shining stars of our world- boogey on!
I’m totally teary reading about mom and son dancing to Shining Star! What a great piece of writing: weddings, relationships, knitting – oh my!
Lovely. Such fun!
“I’m a world-famous knitter.” We know this is the truth but they’d still look at you funny.
Ah the days of dancing on tables!
Loved this article. That is so true about weddings. And finding myself willing to PAY to see a video of that respectable minister get down to Earth Wind and fire with her son. Do they accept Venmo? LOL
This is wonderful! I recently attended the wedding of the son of my college roommate. It was such fun…I knew nobody as she had moved away 20 years ago. One of my favorite memories was at her home the night before the wedding, reminiscing about our college days. Her 3 sons were in the room checking out their phones…and apparently listening to our conversation. At one point we stopped talking and her youngest son said, “Please tell us more stories about college Mom”❤️
That’s precious
Socks are the hardest thing I have ever attempted to make!!! One pair of socks? No, just a reworked and reworked and restarted toe!! Gave up on fingering. Moved to worsted. I can’t stand socks!!!!
What great memories they made for all attendees! May they live happily ever after!
A family member was married on Worldwide Knit In Public Day a few years back, so of course I brought the sock-in-progress to knit a few rounds during a quiet moment here and there. At my table, the owner of a gift shop saw the sock and immediately asked if I handknit socks to sell them. I said, Well, no, sock-knitting is a labor of love for me. She said, No-no-no, you could be selling them! I said that even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t be economically feasible. She said OF COURSE it would! We went back and forth a couple of times, with me smiling and her becoming more adamant, but when I realized she was not going to let it go (there may have been drink taken, it was a wedding, after all) I held up the sock and whispered, This yarn cost thirty dollars. She recoiled like a startled colt, stared at me as if I was out of my mind, and announced a bit loudly, NO ONE is going to pay FIFTY DOLLARS for SOCKS. I nodded sadly and thanked her for setting me straight.
I’m so glad Ann wrote about knitting and weddings – it brought back this memory which still makes me laugh 🙂