bridemaking

Our friend A has turned into a bride!

An amazing day yesterday. We (the bride's maids) had planned a journey, several outdoor rituals, some henna adventures (see pics below). Nothing went strictly according to plan, and despite my usual type-A-ness about things like this, I had prepared myself and didn't care a bit (I was talking with another of the planners last week, and we both remarked how this was the kind of occasion where the planning of it is just as transformational as the day itself).

We ventured off to Vashon Island, and the day poured in varying degrees. We found ourselves wandering through lovely greenness, did our rituals as best we could in the downpour and when bad maps forced flexibility in locations, and found our way to Sound Food, a gorgeous little restaurant and bakery--looked like an afterthought from the outside but was warm and rustic inside with imaginative food, very welcoming to drenched travelers. They also had a patio out back, a wee garden where we initiated and bedecked our girl.

Then off to henna. Let me just say, Kara, our henna artist, was the greatest. We found ourselves at her friend Jane's moon loft (a little journey through a threshhold and down a path), next to the purple yurt (say "purple yurt"--isn't that fun?).

Kara's husband, Hawk, a wonderfully calm and safe guy, accompanied her and tolerated remarkably well the girl chatter (even our discoveries from reading "educational material," ahem, The Joy of Sex, on our travels throughout the day--do you know what the goldfish position is?). A photographer, Hawk took a bajillion digipics that they'll be putting up on the web for us later. These are the few I took (I forgot to get one of my own hand until I got home, that one's at the end):