Mairi's Wedding

My dad and I tentatively selected the song "Marie's Wedding" (though I personally think Mairi would be the more accurate spelling, Van Morrison and the Chieftains are welcome to spell their country's traditional songs as they please) a week or two before the big day. It wasn't until the night of the rehearsal dinner that we ever determined if we could even dance to it. It's a pretty speedy little tune, but our 10 second rehearsal reassured us that we could probably wing something for it.

It's not a song I would attempt dancing with just anyone, but my dad is quite the dancer. He's got excellent rhythm and leads really well, so I just followed him and everything worked out quite dandy.

It was quite a tumultuous time for my family leading up to the wedding, so it was really indescribably special to dance with my dad at my wedding. I was never a child that daydreamed about my future wedding, but I was addicted to the Chieftains album from which this hails (to the extent that you can probably credit it for me ever picking up the fiddle), and I did always imagine it would be featured in some way in my own wedding. Dancing to this tune with my dad, the only person I know who loves celtic music as much as I do, was a perfect moment in a wonderful day.

I think you can see from these photos that I'm still his little girl despite my new marital status.

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Step we gaily on we go,
Heel and heel
And toe for toe
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Arm and arm
And row and row,
All for Marie's wedding
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Over hillways, up and down,
Myrtle green and bracken brown,
Past the sheilings through the town
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All for the sake of Marie

Red her cheeks as Rowan's are,
Bright her eyes as any star

Fairest of them all by far,
Is our darlin' Marie

Plenty herring, plenty meal,
Plenty peat to fill her kreel

Plenty bonnie bairns as well,
That's the toast for Marie


All photos by Jenna Cole, unless otherwise denoted by watermark as Lynn Nguyen's, or unless marked as a guest photo.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.