Jackson Hole Summer- An Innkeeper’s Wedding Reflection

The newlyweds, Sarah and Nat, just after their ‘I dos’ for their Jackson Hole Summer Wedding.

The Inn on the Creek, a small Bed and Breakfast, had the pleasure of having Sarah Sanders on staff for two years starting in 2013. Her bubbly personality made her an instant hit with all our guests.  Additionally, her talents in the kitchen left a lasting memory on many a pleased palate. Her newly-minted fiancé received a full-time position with Zion National Park, so this warm-weather loving gal and her man made the move south. Since there is no place like a Jackson Hole Summer, these two love birds decided to tie the knot on top of a mountain in the shadow of the Tetons this last June.

Casey, Hailey and Ari celebrating the wedding!

Three cheers for the happy couple with Lindsey and Sam.

We could not be happier for these two! We know that any of our guests that had the pleasure of interacting with Sarah feel the same. For this reason we thought we would share some words from Sarah’s experience with you all.

Sarah’s background in literature and her love of writing makes her an excellent blogger. The Inn featured many of her blogs in her tenure with us. She took to this avenue once more to express a side of her experience during her Jackson Hole Summer wedding week that does not always receive the due attention. Please read her eloquent words featured in the blog Female Friends:

I got married three weeks ago in front of 80-something of my favorite people on the planet. Friends and family members came from far and wide to experience the beauty of Jackson Hole; the joy of being together, drunk on life and libations; and the love my husband and I share for each other and for the entire slice of humanity there assembled. I knew I was making a commitment to Nat, and we had both thought long and hard about whether and how we should join our lives. I had considered all the facts, as I knew them, of what it means to marry someone, about the two trees becoming one, the choices one leaves behind, and the power of our words over the future of our lives and hearts. It had occurred to me that part of why I wanted to have a wedding and not just an elopement was that I wanted to make the age-old vows before our family and friends, to have them witness and consecrate these promises I was making to Nat and he was making to me. The other people seemed important, but we were still the most important.

What I did not, could not have anticipated were the ways in which I felt I was marrying my friends, and that we were creating a brand new and more-exceptional-than-ever friend-family. It was precious beyond words. I always knew my best buds would be best buds if given the opportunity, and there is nothing I like more than being right. haha, ahem. And they got along famously. It was swell. But it was more than just fun. It was true love, playing out and deepening throughout one long, intense weekend. My girlfriends came together, surrounding and supporting me with their affection, their arms, and their abilities to bake, craft, dance, write, rap, and truly expand each other’s consciousness. It’s not just two trees that become one; it’s that the two trees realize they’re part of an aspen grove, where every tree is connected underground, our roots mingling even as we grow uniquely tall or short, bent or straight, green or gold above ground. I get to do life with Nat most days, but I also get to live it with each of them, at different times and places.

My wedding was very do-it-yourself, which in practice, means everyone-does-it. My female friends made the whole celebration happen in the way I imagined with little and very unskilled direction. They agreed that Nat and I belong together, and did their little perfectly to ensure not only that we were married, but that we were married in supreme style. Whether through socialization, biology, or neuro-chemistry, women are the caretakers, the gatherers, the multi-taskers, and the do-without-askers. And I realize now as I never have that I know the best women in the world.

In our ceremony, Corrie Lynn talked about marriage as the relationship in which you unlearn to hide yourself. Every so often you reveal a bit or piece that might have been unknown to your spouse or even to yourself, and you ask that person to still accept you, to love you, perhaps to help you with it, but mainly just to witness it. The female friendship can be another such relationship. Because I am truly seen, for all my wonderful and terrible truth, by each of you, and because I want to see each of you for your true and hopeful selves, we are a good and perfect world within ourselves. I can BE me because you can SEE me. I can unlearn to hide my love away because you are there, asking me to give it to you. And here, on this blog, just as I did on the mountaintop with Nat, I proclaim my love for each of you to the world, and I make my public commitment to these female friendships.

…… Sarah concludes with-

I love all of you, each and every one. I’m blessed by your outpouring of love to me and to each other and to us (Nat and me). It’s naive, perhaps, expecting that one day, weekend or week can tie so many separate threads into one neat bow. But if you’ll lend me an extended metaphor, Nat and I are the ones that tied the knot. All of my friends form my rope and his friends form his. We tied ourselves together, and thus did we tie you. I will need you all to keep the marriage bound. As much as you all did for me already, I will continue to lean on you in the years to come, to confide in you, to ask you for honesty and tenderness, and to look to you for good times, belly laughs, and possibly more free labor. While writing this, I read this and apparently I agree. There should be a meaningful moment taken to acknowledge female friendships, to signify how they have helped us pass into adulthood relatively intact, and to recognize the roles we have played in fulfilling each other in ways that the men we know cannot or do not. Thankfully this blog exists as a space to do just that. So before these readers, by the power vested in me by my 34.5 years of lively living, I now pronounce us female friends for life, cooler than a polar bear’s toenails, sweeter than a plate of yams with extra syrup, and may we all live as happily ever after as possible, wearing diamonds on the soles of our shoes.

To read Sarah’s blog in full, please click here.