Wedding Extravaganza

Kimmy and kitten; this was at the grand barn clean-out two days before the wedding. She's standing with her pride and joy.
[Not the kitten, silly--the Jeep!]


Not only is Rebekah fiesty, she can sing and dance too!
She's also a member of an obscure religious sect that firmly believes that if you take a picture of someone who is talking on their cell phone, you steal their soul away. You may notice later that there are six bridesmaids and five groomsmen. That's because after Ferdinand [my lesser-known brother] took the picture, Rebekah used the cane to beat him to death.
Fortunately Chris' soul returned to his body in time for the wedding.


Until I saw this picture, I had no idea Chris and I were so close.


Why are you all glaring at my uncle? Does the camera make him look suspicous or something?


Christa and Mitch sing us down the aisle to "When I'm 64".


Chris shouldn't flirt with the minister, but he has no shame.


The great thing about April? Her photogenicness radiates out to others nearby!


Me and some of my best lifelong friends. Sometimes I'm staggered by how blessed I am. Clockwise from bottom left:
My soon-to-be sister-in-law Anna [rhymes with piranha], and longtime confidante; Anna has it together!
my beautiful sister Sharon;
Lindsay and I have been friends for eight years now--when she's not taking the corporate world by storm she is building herself a greenhouse or profiling local artists for the newspaper.
Me;
Maggie [the redhead, in case you've lost your place] and I met when we had to share a man our sophomore year of college. It takes three classy people for the best friend, the girlfriend, and the boy to all cuddle together. She is now in New York studying for her Ph.D. Someday I will visit her and let some of the glamour rub off on me.
Melissa. Melissa and I have known each other since grade school. She is an astonishingly good person who has built a beautiful life for herself, like the proverbial phoenix rising from its ashes. She inspires me. [Also, she's rolling her eyes as she reads this, because she's modest, and because she disapproves of melodramatic cliches.]
Kimmy and I met in high school. She's got incredible levels of energy and is the most athletic woman I know. And she's single! Seriously, someone needs to snap her up. She's studying to be a teacher. And she's tough. She will fight you and she will win, even if she has to tear your beating heart right out of your chest with her bare hands: a woman after my own heart.


And they are all so beautiful that you get a second picture! Here you can really see their outfits. I asked everyone to pick out a dress--or top and skirt--that they felt pretty in and knew they would wear again. For color guidance I sent out pictures of leaves I'd collected from my yard; I had planned to just use paint chips, but they don't make any that matched the leaves and grass I brought in for comparison. I made a scarf for each bridesmaid so they would have a unifying element, and asked them to wear the scarf how they wished. Lindsay tied hers in her hair, and Melissa used hers as a sash. I love how everyone has a chance to let their personality come through in their clothes. Much better than those matchy-matchy polyester prom dresses.


Here's me with the boys! From left to right, Matthew, Chris, Eric, Jake, and Josh. Matthew is my brother, Chris is my brother-in-law, Eric and Josh were Ian's roommates in the Boy House [Josh is currently in some obscure eastern European country that used to be part of the Soviet bloc, on his year-long Bahai mission trip], and Jake is Ian's best friend since early high school.


The whole sassy lineup, boys and girls together. Kimmy is showing the most leg. Josh doesn't count because his kilt is supposed to be that length. To be fair, the ankle that Melissa is flashing would make her scantily clad by Victorian standards.
Note that the boys all have white bowler hats, and canes, gold bow ties and cummerbund, and spats. Ian drove all over town to find the spats.
For anyone whose planning a wedding, here's my opinion. Let the girls do what they want. You can trust the girls. They will plan ahead and come out looking beautiful.
All I asked the guys to do was to be sure they had a white button-down shirt, black pants [or kilt, if that's what you habitually wear--see? I was flexible! I was the anti-Bridezilla!] and black dress shoes. That's it. That's all.
And the girls, of course, had their outfits picked out well before the wedding. They had called me up of their own volition to discuss options they were considering. Maggie e-mailed me links to Anthropologie. Anna and Lindsay asked me to come shopping with them. Kimmy had a hard time finding the right outfit, but we still found hers a week before the wedding.
But the guys?
Well, my brother Matthew was 17 and had my mother to superintend him; [Matthew has added an indignant note to share his side] and Chris, of course, was in Sharon's capable hands. So we were batting .400:
The MORNING OF the wedding, around 10 am, Josh came downstairs and said, "Hey, anyone want to come shoe shopping with me? I don't own any black shoes."
Eric popped his head out of his room. "Did someone say shopping? I need to go get a white shirt and some black pants."
Jake then woke up and said, "Oh hey, can someone lend me some money? I spent all of mine to get here and I don't have black shoes or a white shirt or black pants."
So then they all thought they should go hit the local Goodwill and see if they could find any bargains. Ian called us girls to advise us of this plan. After a hasty and indignant conference we clustered around the phone and unanimously announced that the boys had had MONTHS to acquire these items in a budget-conscious way. Having squandered this opportunity, they were to go immediately to the Fred Meyer's two blocks away and purchase the clothing new. Stef, utterly appalled and fighting back tears, volunteered to take charge of this enterprise. Ian stayed on the phone and brokered a compromise. He had to firmly instruct the boys and put Josh in charge of the shopping expedition with strict orders to only hit the classier second-hand stores, like Buffalo Exchange and Red Light. If they found nothing suitable there, they were to proceed immediately to Fred Meyer's. He then disclaimed responsibility and went out to play football. Yes, he really did.
The men did find SOMETHING wearable--though Eric ended up with a very tight pair of black polyester pants that, well...did wonders for his derriere. One of the bridesmaids had the presence of mind to physically prevent Jake from approaching me to gloat that after they had bought pants at Buffalo Exchange they had stopped at Goodwill to compare prices and that he could have saved two bucks.
SO. If I ever, Ever, EVER get to dictate the choices of clothing for a group of men ever again--you all get to rent tuxes. HA! Expensive tuxes. With ruffles all down the front of the shirt. And with, I don't know, extra buttons or ribbons or whatever else it is that makes men's formal clothing so proverbially uncomfortable. And if it's in the summer, I'll make you wear suit jackets, too!
Note to any girls getting married: It's too late for me ladies, to provide these gentlemen with just desserts. But it's not too late for you! Stand firm in retro-feminist solidarity and remember that the few have spoiled it for the many. Shoot when you see the whites of their eyes! Don't let them get away!


The classic shot. Look for it on a thank-you note near you! [I'll get them out to you, I swear.]


The toast. This was probably the moment where Jake describes me as, "Suzanne, who makes a hell of a bride..." Jake made it his personal goal to get all conservative Christian progenitors out of their respective comfort zones. Some of them aren't as easily shocked as he likes to think, of course.


Daddy and his quartet, The Envoys, roamed from table to table to serenade us all. Here you can see, from left to right: Waynne, who sings baritone, my daddy, who sings bass, Ben, who is first tenor, and Jerry, who sings lead. Jerry Angell and his wife Myrna generously allowed us to have the wedding in their field and the reception in their barn, and helped enormously with the planning and set-up.


Notable personages in this photo include Gabe and Tennille! You can also see The Envoy's accompanist Fran Maynard is on the end, next to her husband Tom. You can also see Jake's parents, Rosie and Cliff Bihl, on the right.


Isn't my brother-in-law dashing? In the dim background, you can see my cousin Tom, Aunt Marilee, and Uncle Greg. Uncle Greg took a number of the pictures I'm posting here.


My family. If you've seen Zoolander, you will recognize Ian's expression as Le Tigre. The woman to the right of me is my Aunt Naomi, Dad's sister, and mother of Rebekah. [Uncle Merideth and my cousin Ben were unable to be present, and so sadly are not pictured.] Uncle David, Dad's brother, is behind me.


Ian's family. We don't know why Josiah chose this moment to roar like a lion. See, Josiah? This is why we can't have nice things.
Also note: Josiah has taken the length of McDonald tartan that was used to handfast us together at the end of the ceremony and made it into a necktie.
Ian's grandma Merilyn is to the right of Marisa, and Kirsten and her husband Leroy are behind me.


Ian and his little sisters, Briar and Brigand.
[And we all say HOORAY, for feminist power names!]


Ian manhandling Emerald and Josiah, his niece and nephew.


Ian's stepmother Cricket feels most truly alive when she has a camera in her hand.


More fabulous people! Starting from left: Tim and his wife Renata, my dashing Uncle David; Randy, my youth pastor since I was twelve, is at the head of the table. Alex has something in his mouth. Megan is peeking out around Paul's enormous cranium.


Brigand and Briar wander through the labyrinth we ceremonially walked during the ceremony. Ceremoniously.


Ian and ALL his sisters! From top left, clockwise: Anna, Kirsten, Lori [honorary! best friend of Kirsten--though don't they look alike?], Briar, and Brigand.



Everyone needs one good goofy shot.
This is also a great chance to show off our outfits. My dress was lovingly handmade by Ruth, Ian's mother Marisa's best friend. [Ruth is also the mother of honorary sister Lori in the previous picture.] Ruth took my ideas and the medieval dress patterns I'd collected and synthesized them into something unique and fabulous. The white overdress comes off for dancing. My headwreath is also of note because Marisa wove it for me by hand.
Ian's outfit was made by Simo Silk, from Pike's Place Market in Seattle. He loves the style of a Chinese formal suit, and chose gold because it is a joyful, celebratory color. Sadly, the pants did not survive their night of revelry and the seams split in multiple places. Marisa is using them to make Christmas stockings for us.



Emerald just doesn't trust you. And frankly, we can't blame her.


Melissa looking wistful.


Part one: "Sigh. He's smart as the dickens....what a shame about those leftist values... He'll come around though; he's still young."


Part two: Hmm.... why is Ian's dad staring at me so fixedly? Too bad about those right-wing/libertarian values...he's such a smart guy.... But no doubt he'll mellow with age." [Meanwhile, Josh is on the left pontificating about neo-Keynesian agrarian economics.]



Did I already post this picture? Note the knife in Wally's sock. He's very alert to take down any conscientious objectors.



This was my special wedding-day face. No one remembers seeing it before or since. Also, I'm tragically and bizarrely allergic to some paternal relatives.
[Grandma, this is a joke. I'm not actually allergic to you and Grandpa. Mom made me promise to put this caveat in because she thinks you won't approve of my joke...]


There were like five different pictures of the four of us together, and in every single one, Ian and I look really bizarre and Wally and Heather look adorable. Oh, and they just got engaged before Christmas. Congratulations, Wally and Heather!


When Alex busts a move, he really busts a move. Go Alex go! Meanwhile, on the left, Josh continues his courtship of Maggie, and they dramatically tango off toward the ever-expanding horizon.


Sharon and Chris perfect the obscure but celebrated 'stationary dance.' They hope one day to be featured at Madame Tussaud's.


Part one: The old yawn-and-stretch trick.


Part two: Isn't this move a movie theater exclusive? It's strange to see it successful in broad daylight.


Part three: "You have to be smart and keep watching their feet, because sometimes they stand on their tiptoes and cheat." --Dr. Seuss
Ian's dad re-establishes dominance.


Ah, Rob. He wanders the world, making thoughtful toasts at weddings and causing women to compete for his affections. Oh, and Rob? Ian wants you to unhand his sister. At once.
He reluctantly acknowledges that he has no jurisdiction over Brenna, but warns you not to try him too far.


A Rob Sarah Suzanne moment.
In the background, Maggie is continuing her courtship of Josh. Hmmmm....I wonder why he is holding his shirt in his hand instead of wearing it?


Oh....maybe that's why.
On my caller ID, she now comes up as "Stef, That Whore." For Christmas, we made a 16x20 of this shot and taped it to her parents' front door. She added a delightful element of scandal to the reception.


"It's raining men
Hallelujah it's raining men, Amen
I'm gonna go out
I'm gonna let myself get
Absolutely soaking wet!" --The Weather Girls



Our cake toppers. Do you recognize the Barista and the Philosopher Cynic? Note that they are handfasted with a piece of plaid ribbon.


Tim and Renata and Maggie. At this captured moment, they are the only people at the wedding who know that Renata is pregnant! [Tim and Renata's baby is due in March. All of us here at the Continuing Saga are waiting agog with bated breath for the advent of the McNeely progeny. So post some more pictures on Flickr, guys!]


Alex and Megan; Alex is once again suave and collected. But beware! He could bust a move again.....


We talked about it, and none of actually knows who that woman on the left is.
Seriously. Never seen her before. But boy, is she having fun!


April coaches the ordinarily straitlaced Marisa to loosen up a little.
Ruth--who made my dress--also made Marisa's overdress. It coordinates with Ian's: gold detailing, mandarin collar, and frog fastenings.



Aww, kissing on the dance floor.

Adorable picture of Ian, resized

Isn't he delightful, folks? This is a picture from a month before the wedding at his mother's birthday/4th of July picnic.

He has dreadlocks now. If you are local, you should drop by Braganza Pearl Tea at Clackamas Town Center and get him to show you.

How We Became Griffonwyd

My bouquet and the name change announcement card.


The card explains in the small print that we have thrown off the mantle of the patriarchy by BOTH changing our names [yes, I was Suzanne Blake, and he was Ian McDonald--or to be more specific, Suzanne Joy Blake and Lucas Ian McDonald] to an Anglicized version of his mother's maiden name of Gripenwaldt. [I got to choose the spelling, and yes, any hypothetical children will just have to live with it!] We pondered it for quite a while. Neither of us liked the symbolism of me giving up my name for his, or him giving up his name for mine. We momentarily considered the Blake-McDonald hyphenate, but hyphenates are not sustainable. What happens when Tate Britain Blake-McDonald marries Charisma Person-Jenrich? Furthermore, Ian's father got remarried to Cricket Blake, and their family is now a Blake-McDonald [or, McDonald-Blake?] hyphenate. Ian's little half-sisters had already explained to him that he couldn't marry me because I was related to them, being a Blake.

So then we considered going with a whole new name. Ian, tongue-in-cheek, suggested Zanzibar. Not realizing that he wasn't serious, it was suddenly borne in on me that I had unknowingly wanted to be Suzanne Zanzibar all my life. Ian was rather taken aback the next day when I enthusiastically supported his new suggestion, and it was back to the drawing board.

Then we talked about how he had in the past considered going back to his mother's maiden name. While we were just dating, I thought it was a fabulous idea. I mean, what a catch, a sensitive, feminist guy! Now that we were engaged, however, I realized that Gripenwaldt was almost unpronounceable, unspellable, and from that awful gutteral language, German.
[Yes, I'm allowed to say that; German is the only identifiable aspect of my mixed-bag Caucasian heritage.] I definitely didn't want to be Suzanne Gripenwaldt. But then we moved on to Ian's plans to own a coffeeshop. He's always wanted to call it Griffinwood Coffee. We realized that some form of Gryphonwood would be perfect--Something old, made new, and borrowed! [Note the blue Griffon in the picture.] We decided to become Griffonwyd.

Now, how did we pick the spelling? Originally, I was for Gryphonwood, because of the fantastical correspondence of Griffin and Sabine, which captured my imagination in high school.

But Gryphonwood looks too much like "Cottonwood". It just didn't work. And it was LONG. So we tried "Gryphonwyd". And it looked great, and was shorter by one letter, but no one had a hope of pronouncing it. But I liked the Welsh/Old English look of 'wyd' and so I searched for something that would make it manageable for day-to-day use. And 'Griffonwyd' seemed the most attractive of the lot. Furthermore, it got NO hits on Google, which meant that we were fantastic and original. I mean, who wants 'Griffinwood' with 782 hits?

So, on to the next step: the legal name change. Turns out it's a pain in the tuckus for the man to change his name. If he had changed his name to Griffonwyd before the wedding, I could have just changed my name to his, but sadly we weren't that organized. To change your name in Oregon, you have to fill out an entire packet of paperwork and make several trips to the courthouse. You have to fill out and post the notice that you plan to change your name on their special bulletin board. You have to pay them about $105, and you have to come back for your court date, where the judge can deny your name change if they wish [and keep your money anyway! Fortunately they didn't wish.] Then you have to post the announcement of your name change for two weeks before it becomes official. During this time, anyone who wants to can lodge a protest against you changing your name! [Ian says when he is old he will hang around the courthouse and go into those hearings and lodge protests on the grounds that he objects to change.] I made at least three trips to the courthourse, and Ian, who kept forgetting his court date, made about five. It takes a month or so, if you do it right the first time.

When I came home and announced that my named was finally, legally changed, [after months of discussing this whole process either with them or in their hearing] my dad stared at me for a moment and then said, "I thought you were kidding! You really aren't changing to McDonald?"

Finally, the pictures

Me, at birth.


Me at my 3rd birthday party. I LOVED this suit with the butterflies. I'm pretty dubious about the cameraman, though.


Me and my little sister, Sharon. I would have been five, I think, and she would have been just turning two.


At last! The infamous picture that will get Ian involved with this ....online journal.


Me and Stef together at an end-of-summer Oaks Park shindig. So, who's hair is sassier?


Me and Ian with some of the world's most fabulous people: Paul, Zeke and Cheryl!


Hasn't he improved, folks? Sigh.... I actually have two excellent pictures of him by his lonesome, looking spiffy, but neither of them are the right size to post properly. So you have a picture with me in it, too.

And while we're at it, he really was a precious kid:


yep. precious.


and this is what he looks like in the morning!


He did have an adolescence, however:


To be fair, I did too:



COMING SOON: WEDDING PICTURES!

Hello From Suzanne

Hi,

It's two pm and I've been tinkering with this thing for the last two hours. It's been fun, but playing around with the code is tricky. I keep making mistakes and having to make guesses at how to fix them.

Playing around with the colors, particularly, may have been a mistake...though I really wanted some orange to liven things up. Every time I make a change, to see it I have to save it, which takes several minutes. Let me know if you get eye strain and I'll change it back to the default settings. At some point y'all are going to get pictures, but now it's a little much for me to contrive.

Anyway, on to other things. Today is my Friday! I now work 5 hours a day, Sat-Tues, starting at 5-7 am.

News in my life: my parents are selling their house and moving, so I'm kind of losing my sense of 'home'. It takes a long time to build that, so it will be awhile before our apartment has the same comforting feel to it.

This was my initiative, to do the .....ahem, online journal.... and I'm trying to convince Ian to post semi-regularly too. He doesn't like to be tied down. So let him know that you want to hear from him.

Oh, shout-out for Ian:
FOOTBALL, EVERY SATURDAY AT 11 AM AT THE CORNER OF 20TH AND BELMONT!! BE THERE OR YOU'RE A GIRLY-MAN.

You know.... I need a nap.

Oh, hey, I just figured out pictures. Here's me, at birth.

Ooh, and I just figured out something!! If I publish THIS picture of Ian, he'll post right away in return for my taking it down!!


Hmm.... I don't know if this picture thing is actually working yet. We'll find out when I save this, I guess.

Backstory II: Suzanne recounts the proposal

The proposal can be best described in Suzanne's own words, from the e-mail she sent out to apprise her friends of it: It was terrible! Yesterday I succumbed to temptation and had an ice cream cone for dinner. It was messy and sticky, and I fell asleep in the car, as is now my habit. I had a plan that Ian would arrive at his house soon and then we would make dinner. So it's after 7, and I'm conked out and Ian's sister Anna comes and knocks on my window. "You forgot your cell phone here yesterday; I didn't realize you were here...Ian called and wanted you to meet him at Powell's at 8." I was cranky. I wanted to go to the gym after eating dinner, and it closes at 9. And he was supposed to come home to help his mother rearrange some furniture. So I complained to Anna and thought about not going, and she told me that he sounded kind of depressed. Then I remembered that the last time Ian had wanted to meet me at Powell's, he had had a really bad day, and I hadn't had my cell phone so I didn't get his messages, and he'd eventually gone home really disappointed. So I knew I HAD to go, and I grumbled about that. "Maybe if I go right now, I cleave right away." I was still only half awake, and couldn't remember how to get to Powell's from West Linn. So we talked about that, and I tried to wake up and be less cranky, coming down from an ice cream dinner and up out of the naptime ether. I invited her to come with me, and she said no, she had some cleaning to get done, and she wanted to take a shower. 'Shower...' I thought. 'I need a shower...' "He can't propose tonight, I'm all sticky. I need a shower. I told him he couldn't propose unless I had taken a shower." "Maybe you should come in and take a shower here, then, just in case." "No, what I really want is dinner. If I get there fast, we could go to the Indian food cart and then go work out, and THEN go home and shower." So finally I started driving, around 7:30. On the way I called Stef, who had called me earlier, and cheerfully complained some more to her, and justified the peanut-butter and chocolate double-scoop dinner. She mentioned that she'd been doing some cleaning and was going to sell some books, so she might as well drive down now and meet us. We discussed our plans for the future, entreprenurial risk, and Ian's talents and our philosophies regarding financial security, and then met in the parking lot. She walked in with me and said she'd meet us in the coffee shop after she sold her books. So I ambled over to the coffee shop and met Ian, who was there with our friend Josh, and a chessboard between them. I asked them with great suspicion if they were just starting a game, and when they said no, I said okay and went to retrieve some Doonesbury books I hadn't read from the humor section nearby. I came back and smacked Ian in the shoulder with one of them, and told him that my blood sugar was low, and it was HIS fault because his mother had had seconds the night before and there hadn't been enough for a good lunch. Then I asked Josh what he had been doing, other than watch us be cranky and domestic, and we decided we'd go for food later. I tried to bury myself in my book and recharge so I could be properly social and fully awake. Then Ian wanted to talk about his problems. I really didn't want to, I just wanted to zone out. I reminded myself firmly of how Ian is always a good listener for me, and asked him what was bothering him. He said he was still feeling bad about the C he had gotten in art history. I forgot sympathy and said, "But you procrastinated on the paper for two weeks. This is something you can change in the future, you know that!" Then he said that we'd been fighting a lot, and that made him feel depressed, and I felt all bummed out. "Well, sort of," I said, "but I thought we had sorted that all out....". THEN he said that we didn't really have any money. "Well, No," I said, getting annoyed. "We're poor. So what? We're always poor. Why do you want to worry about it now?" "And I'm frustrated because the plans for the proposal aren't working out, it's been impossible to get everyone together. I guess I might as well just do it now." He started to slide off his chair. I was horrified. "NO! No! You have to do it right! You are NOT allowed to propose out of depression!" I said, trying to pull him by the arm back onto his chair. That didn't work, and now he was on one knee. "No!" I said. I had this image of my proposal being like a huge rock that's about to roll off a cliff. I mean, you only get one proposal, it's not like you can say the next day, "That wasn't very cool, can you try it again?" Likewise, once that rock rolls off the cliff, that's the point of no return. It's never going to be back up on the cliff again. I had to stop the proposal before it was too late! So I tried to get up out of my chair and walk away. You can't propose to someone who is not there, after all. But he had my arm and I would have had to yank really hard to get away. All this time I was trying to be quiet and inconspicuous. I had an eye on the people the next table, they all seemed to be turning, just a little, but all at the same time...were we making a scenen't want to disturb the other people in the coffee shop because Ian was trying to propose out of hopelessness. But--why did one of them have a guitar? And where was Josh going? All of a sudden about six people stood up and surrounded the table and burst into a five-part harmony to the Beatle's When I'm 64. I was really disoriented. Someone else came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around he proffered three white roses. Everything at this point is kind of a blur. I recall that they altered the words: "Will you still need him / Will you still feed him / When he's 64?" and I think I announced, "Yes!" I looked up a couple times and tried to take in all these people. And I immediately smacked Ian in the face with the flowers as retribution for the practical joke. "But I didn't SHOWER!" I said indignantly. I recall doing this more than once, but the roses made it home in one piece. Stef came in and clapped, and the coffee shop stared, and someone at random in the line took a picture and Josh videotaped the whole thing. Ian said, "Do you wanna get married?" and I said "Yes!" or "Of course!" or something, and waited for him to put the ring on my finger, but he just stayed down there with the box, looking goofily happy, so I finally put it on myself. Then there were kisses appropriate for public consumption and everyone shook hands with us and a Powell's manager came over and asked if I'd said yes, and when I said, "Yes," they gave me a $20 gift card and congratulated me and asked for Ian's name. And we stayed in the coffee shop for awhile and then drove to Ian's house where he cooked us curry and then went to sleep.

Backstory: How We Met

This is from our wedding website:

HOW THEY MET
Ian and Suzanne met and became friends at Oaks Amusement Park in the summer of 1999, where Ian supervised in the kitchen and Suzanne was a ride foreman. During these times they were both dating other people.
They had several deep conversations about their relationships, religion, and philosophy over the next two summers, but Ian intentionally kept his distance because he knew he could be interested in Suzanne but he was committed to the relationship he was in at the time. Suzanne knew that Ian had been dating his girlfriend for two years and figured that they were basically engaged, and considered him a nice, 'safe' friend that she occasionally went to for boy advice.
In the spring of 2001, both Ian and Suzanne thought of each other with regret at lost opportunity. Ian had broken up with his girlfriend but didn't expect to see Suzanne working at Oaks Park that summer, as her romantic relationships there had ended badly. Suzanne had been musing over who to spend time with when she was home for the summer, and suddenly wished that she had gone to Ian's housewarming party the previous summer, instead of wasting her time trying to salvage her relationship with her deadbeat boyfriend. She suddenly realized that Ian could easily become her best friend, but that she didn't know how to find him.
When Suzanne did return to Oaks Park that May, she and Ian were delighted to see each other, and Ian immediately began suggesting that they should go and hang out. On their first date [retroactively described, as neither of them admitted what it was at the time] they sat and talked for hours on a dock, about their families, desire to travel, life philosophies, faith, world events, and their previous romances. They then walked over to Bellagios Pizza, where Ian treated Suzanne to lunch because he happened to have the cash, blissfully unaware that had they gone Dutch at this crucial early moment she would have put him in the 'nondateable material' category.
While on the dock, Suzanne had had a sudden realization that she could fall in love with Ian, which horrified her and which she immediately squelched, quite successfully, for about three weeks. She had sworn to all of her university friends that she wouldn't date any more carnies from Oaks Park, and proceeded to agonize Ian with mixed signals for the next month.
Ian "asked Suzanne out" in June at the Rose Festival in Portland. She had expected him to kiss her first, and that she would then tell him that a summer romance would ruin their friendship. His direct approach threw her off so dramatically that she said yes, and in a state of total joy they both immediately sat down,cross-legged--right where they had been standing--and started babbling about how happy they were. Looking back, sitting down together in the middle of the sidewalk was no doubt a highly effective roadblock for the crowds at the Festival, but neither of them noticed it at the time.
Suzanne didn't allow Ian to kiss her for several days.