This wedding was a fun chance to look back on Sassafrass's own happy wedding memories, like here, when Irina & Beecher are heading off in the Starship Limo!
In early May, we were honored to be invited to perform at the wedding of Mark Roth and Barbara Locklin. This was a joint venture between different Sassafrass branches, with Emily, Kara, Lila, Ruth, and Sandry driving down from Boston to join Beecher and Irina in Virginia. Our performance was a surprise gift from the bride to the groom (we snuck in posing as distant cousins), and it was wonderful to be part of her making him so very happy.
The wedding itself was lovely– the ceremony was performed by a pair of musicians from the Chicago area who wrote and performed a song just for the happy couple. The company was good, the food was excellent, the groom wore a morning coat and top hat, the fire dancers were amazing, and the cake (which I believe Mark baked himself) was based on the amazing Apollo 8 earthrise photo.
We performed four songs, requested by the couple. Kara and Sandry performed “Where I Come From,” and it was really special to watch the wedding couple gaze at each other and tear up happily at all the right places. All the women joined together on “Caravan” and on “Somebody Will,” split evenly between the two parts, with Beecher bringing in the audience on the final chorus. We also kicked off a small song circle just before we had to leave, using “Hearthfire,” in honor of the fire dancers who had performed earlier in the evening. We did a bit of an experiment, with Irina singing the melody most of the time, Kara playing the stranger/Odin and taking on the melody during those parts, and Emily doing the same for the son. It worked well, and we’ll definitely repeat it during some future performances.
Altogether, we were delighted to be able to be part of such an important moment in Mark and Barbara’s lives, and we hope that their whole life together will be as sweet and as musical as its beginning!
