May, June, and July weddings are a good idea. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” trilled William Shakespeare. For Halcyon Day lovers, skies are blue, the grass is green, the sun smiles. By no accident did the Beach Boys hit the jack pot with happy summer land surfing and all those cruising songs.
Autumn nuptials may prove chancier, stormier—more cello, less violin. The weather can swing either way. Indeed, a bride may want to consult literary symbolism prior to setting her wedding date. Ah, but upon closer look, we find Fall to be the season for spiced and ready Romance, for snuggling, lingering kisses, for new and glorious awakenings. Wood smoke rises and dances in the crisp air, a genie free of its bottle. The black creek sparkles now, a shimmering path winding through the shadowed mist and meadow with surprising bright bursts here and there.
I would never choose June over our wedding day on October 19th, that spectacular Mid-west morning after it had rained all night, when we married out in the woods, when Autumn Light—that magical presence—made her visitation, sifting through fine vapor and trees clothed in velvet moss, striking bright yellows and coppers like hammer upon lyre. Why didn’t the Maples, Sweetgums, and Oaks all burst into autumn flame at once? Instead, like a well-orchestrated symphony, each took its perfectly timed entrance and exit—a sacred moment in the otherwise ordinary—Nature’s Romance at its finest. My fiancé and I (then nineteen) eloped that day before hopping a train to Toronto. Only after crossing the border, safe in another country, did we have the courage to call and announce to our parents that we were wed. Glorious awakening, indeed. Although I’m not fond of pumpkin spice, I’m sticking with F. Scott Fitzgerald who claims, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”