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If I could eat every meal in a popular grove in Virginia on a warm October night, sitting at a single table under a canopy of lights with everyone I’ve ever loved, I would. If the table were lit with candlelight and lined with vintage napkins, little boxes of whoopie pies and pleasantries, even better. If could drink champagne and eat stuffed artic char and artisan cheeses and charcuterie and simmered carrots with caraway and chocolate cake with chamomile cream, I would do that too. And if I could sit and talk with András, my siblings, our parents and our dearest friends as the sun fell out of the sky, I would be the happiest girl on earth. But it happened only once. This was our wedding day.
There are dozens of treasured moments and memories tied into every detail of our wedding, from the minute we arrived at the Berry Hill Estate, to the moment we stole away after our last goodbyes to eat our leftover cheese and cake on a blanket somewhere deep on Berry Hill's back 40. When I think back on that day now, I taste the blackberry cobbler and pickled peaches of our rehearsal dinner that we ate under the sky watching A Knight’s Tale in a courtyard full of boxwoods; I hear dad counting “one, two, rockstep” as we practiced our dance up in a grand old room just hours before he led me down the aisle;
I see the blur of the sparklers that spun in circles in the giddy hands of my nieces and nephew who twirled and whirled barefoot in the dance floor; I feel the world swirl to a stop at the sound of András’ voice telling me “I András, take you Sarah…”
But it is at the table that our life truly began.
One hot summer Saturday in August just a few years ago, András showed up at the front door of my apartment on 21st street. When I called looking for someone to come have a look at the piano I’d been given, I expected someone forgettable. What I got was quite the opposite, a man who before long was sitting across from me at my table eating my homemade babganoush and labne, laughing and lighting up my little world, sending a wash of peace over my bachelorette’s abode. But that is a story for another day.
The proposal happened deep in a forest full of ferns on a Sunday afternoon in May, high in the Hungarian hills near Porva where András spent his summers as a little boy. We celebrated, around his mother’s table, where for the next 6 days the planning began.
In those first days, we didn’t think to much about where we would say I do {Hungary, Illinois, New York?} only about a table, long and loving enough for all of our nearest and dearest to sit side by side as we had our first meal together as husband and wife. It seemed symbolic—the first supper. We talked about what we would serve and why, about who we would want to be there, and mostly about the importance of breaking bread with the people who would come as a show of support for our vow to love, honor and cherish each other.
It’s impossible to get a girl to sum up her wedding day in just a few words. To me, a wedding is made of up many small, magical moments pieced together by minutes and hours that past far too fast and are held dear by the grace of friends and family who humor you when you’re still talking about it a year later. They are preserved by the generosity of curators like Martha Stewart Weddings, who is honoring us today by including our wedding in their Real Weddings gallery.
A wedding is, at the end of the day, a perfect memory. The marriage, on the other hand, we hope goes on on on, moment upon moment, dream upon dream, meal upon meal, starting with this, our first supper.
P.S. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Like so many details of our wedding that were created or borrowed from someone we love, we got the idea for the table from our friends Josh and Doris, who wed the summer before us, and have since moved on to other things {baby}. And, the vintage napkins and candlesticks came from them too. How wonderful to have friends who share. P.S.S. This is our first dance.
