Wedding and Remains of the Port

Yesterdays wedding was at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse. Constructed in the early 1800's as the first free school for Protestant children by Mr. Turner (who I think was a brewer) this gorgeous little venue is now a Toronto historic site with a school room, small foyer/Victorian museum, and a larger great hall which looks a lot like a chapel when done up. The larger room has the best acoustics of any venue in the city, for my ear. A cello played in that room is the voice of God, however you conceive of He/She/It/They to be, but I love doing weddings in the school room best. The desks are rustic and plain. In the back corner is a tin plate, a vase for water and a bar of soap. There is a lectern at the front I normally ignore and the signing table is a plain wood desk with a very short chair. The reason why I like doing weddings here is simple - its the lessons in love that make us grow, wake us up to possibilities and the fact that life is worthwhile. Love of friends, love of family, love of cats and couch and sky and water. We learn so much of ourselves in learning where to entrust and place our love, we learn what's healthy to hope for. And when love is placed well and hope justifiably entrusted, the growth and direction can be embraced and guided, cared for and relied upon. I believe in love, fully and devoutly, as the only thing that can better the world, the only thing that can better a life. And so this little room with it's soft light, the low chair where a bride and/or groom is humbled to be signing their life to another's - I like that. It's beautiful but it's also seed like. It's the perfect place for a wedding and if I had mine to do over, I might well suggest that place.
The wedding itself was magnificent. The groom was trembling but still joked and kept both the bride and me laughing through the ceremony. There was a unity candle lighting, fabulously simple candles and holders. I've seen some unity candle sets that are sold for upwards to a hundred dollars - it's a pillar and two tapers, you don't need plastic sad eyed doves mooning at each other all around it, and so the simple ones make me happy because a) they're tasteful and b) I know no one got hosed in an emotionally vulnerable purchase moment. I said goodbye to each afterward and with the bride in sight having photos taken mailed off the paperwork. Then walked home - another reason why I love the Enoch Turner. It's close.
The rest of the evening was devoted to drinking with husband and friend Kelly, vast quantities of increasingly inappropriate wine product for the girls and blender drinks for him. I say inappropriate because the first bottle (!) of port went down nicely, winter is fine port weather. The second bottle? Sadness. I've enjoyed...well, a lot of this brand port in the past. This summer, they changed their packaging from a screw cap to a seemingly higher end cap with cork. This is the third bottle purchased where the velvety goodness of a low end but passable complex port could not be found. Instead, there was a thicker wine product that tasted like shiraz mixed with bread mould. The aroma and flavour truly reminded me of sweaty socks taken from diseased feet. (This morning I took it back and exchanged it with another bottle - upon closer examination, the cork was flawed and likely let in air. I'll be writing Vincor about this, for sure, but at least they haven't deliberately changed the product). We moved on to a new "unoaked" merlot that promised a fruity flavour and cleaner palate. The delivery? Years ago while with a group of pagans, there was a Dionysian ritual where wine was made. Good party, meaningful celebration - and a lot of peoples questionably clean feet went into what was optimistically called "Temple Wine", later greeted with reservation and/or dread. Everywhere we went for the next year, it turned up in homes, at parties, at dinners...there is no food that was well paired with it. Kelly and I both took a sip, made a face, and said "Temple Wine" in unison, moving on to the blender drink (1/2 chocolate ice cream, 1/8 chocolate milk, the rest Frangelico) that is one of my husband's areas of expertise. People who love people oak their damn wine. And people who love themselves? Don't continue drinking substandard product. The things you learn from love are the most important ones, and applicable in all kinds of situations...