Our wedding was simple. I made my white wool dress and red cape, as well as John's creamy wool shirt and scarlet jacket. The buttons were made by a friend and showed a progression from seedling to flower. We had no shoes. My sisters made six carrot cakes and our friends sang acapella. The flowers in my hair were from an elderly professor's garden, the reception was in my aunt's backyard. There were probably some folding chairs.

It was not intended as a statement about minimalism. The wedding industry had not yet mushroomed and no one in our circle felt the least obligation to serve more than sheet cake.

Thirty years later the bar has escalated to rungs that never even existed in the eighties.

There was no guest book at our reception nor a Pinterest inspired tree for guests to leave leaves on. I would be hard pressed to name more than thirty of the friends who attended since there was no written list, and the dozen snap shots are both fuzzy and faded.

But in the decades since a gaggle of people have taken a moment to tell me that they were indeed on that hillside, and what it meant to be in the presence of two people standing before God. With no extra effort or expense on our part, they were touched. Enough to remember the imprint on their hearts a third of a century later. And in telling me, I remember too, with more clarity than a Polaroid.

I have been in their shoes many times since, meaning the people who wore them. When there is an open invitation to a ceremony in my town I often slip in the back and slide unobtrusively into a pew. My presence does not appear to deplete the couple's joy even while I tap my foot to the cello, smell the gardenias, relish their smiles, and recall what it feels like to float on air.

My personal prayer is that in witnessing their vows I will be better positioned to support them when the music has faded. Because all of us tend to forget.