Diamond-Cut Life

I’ve read that the average wedding in the U.S. costs $20,000. (I wonder how many fights ensue over getting it all paid off?) Portland’s green wedding of the year, that of our friends Noelle Studer and Eli Spevak, was long on community, short on materialism. The joy and vitality were palpable.

Here Eli and Noelle are on July 13th on their tandem bicycle, shortly after their outdoor ceremony in Mount Tabor Park, which is a couple of blocks from our house. About 60 of us bicycled from there to Peninsula Park for the wedding reception, where many others of all ages joined us. This was my first experience of a bicycle caravan, and I found that our happy procession of pedalers transformed the street into a truly public space that belonged to people instead of cars.

Noelle and Eli are what Thor and I would call ’sustainability artists’, Noelle as the sustainability coordinator at Portland State University (the largest college in Oregon) and Eli as an innovative developer of affordable housing. While they make normal professional livings, their real affluence lies in their rich social capital of talented friends, enthusiastic volunteers, and close-knit family ties.

photo courtesy of sangelingus

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