Sunday, June 26, 2011

Devi Leiper Getting Married

We went to a lovely wedding today in a Colorado State Park past the Platte river with the land sloping all the way east across Nebraska to the Mississippi and the snow-capped Rockies on the horizon to the west.

I feel like I'm in America... The sky was so blue and open and vast that the whole world seemed to stretch out in both directions ceaselessly.

This was a beautiful, truly romantic wedding of two young souls full of the joys and love of life. The bride, Devi, is the Camodian-American daughter of my dear college roommate-travel partner, Scott, and his refined, politician wife, Sochua Mu.

The bridegroom is from these parts originally and many of his six sibling family live nearby. Derek and Devi met at their graduate school in Lund, Sweden and then worked together in
Uganda, where they fell in love.

Their vows were said in a small courtyard near the State Park office with redwing blackbirds swirling around the grove of trees.

Derek's mom officiated while Scott, Sochua and their two other exquisite daughters, Thida and Malika, stood by, tears filling their eyes. Their friends spoke their own brief vows, asking D&D if they would honor the thoughts or promises they had prepared.

Then, Derek and Devi exchanged their own vows of love, care, compassion, humor and protection for the length of their lives.

The look of love out on an open plain, American and Cambodia pausing for two young souls to blend their worlds, their cultures and their futures together.

This was a very, very peaceful, inspiring day...

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