How the Wheelbarrow Got to Our Wedding

…and send you reelin’
Where your love can’t hide
And then go stealin’
Through the moonlit nights
With your lover…

We dipped and swung, everyone circled around, and then, Ruth over the speakers, “…a family tradition, called Chivaree, the bride gets a free ride, the band plays a song of their choosing. As long as that song is playing, Bins has to wheel Kerstin around the dance floor.”

There was my father-in-law, carting it in. Afterwards, Kerstin told me her brothers added the white blanket and tied streamers around the handles.

“It was your brother’s idea to get it with two wheels,” my mother explained. “First, we tried a canvas hand cart. Pele tested it and fell right through. So your father went to Home Depot, and Stines said that was more stable, so you don’t dump Kerstin on the floor in her white dress.”

I tipped it forward, Kerstin sat back, kicked her feet high and sunk into the wheelbarrow, crossing her ankles. Then the band played “Party in the USA.” 

Our wedding was filled with music.

 From Miley Cyrus to Jubal leading a singalong of “Let Your Love Flow,” to the string trio Kerstin commissioned for the ceremony. Our three brothers harmonizing with Hank Williams at the Karaoke afterparty. The cosmic longing of Nina Simone’s “Consummation” when it was time to walk down the aisle.

For thousands of years
My soul has roamed the earth
In search of you

Waiting by the church, my chest shuddered. “I think it just hit me,” I trembled. My mom turned and hugged me. “Yeah,” she said. Then it was time to go.

The walk to the arbor, all your waiting friends, past your whole family. This moment is finally here, this freeze-frame in the lifecycle. You are walking into it.

Everyone stands. She’s shimmering. I take her hands. Corin tells our family and friends how, before I met Kerstin, “Bins had applied his usual work ethic to dating. But love, it turns out, isn’t something you can engineer.”

A wheelbarrow, it turns out, is. “Your father took it apart but didn’t write down any directions,” my mom added. “It had to fit in the back of the car – with all the bean bag chairs.”

There are too many people to be grateful to.

When you get married, too many acts of heroism. Rocco and Little Fox splitting off from the other groomsmen with a socket wrench. Just before the ceremony rehearsal, helping my father screw the wheelbarrow back together.

Margot sneaking the bottle of bourbon into our wedding party photos. Rosalyn marching through Chinatown with Kerstin, booking a dim sum brunch. Ash for grabbing Simon’s suit, Diego for ordering the pizza (everyone’s favorite part of our wedding), Shoshana for setting out the guest book and blankets.

I found a thrill to rest my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known

My parents building a kids’ room with bean bag chairs and a movie projector. Lucia and Tobert for the photo booth, Corin for officiating.

“Bins and Kerstin’s story is uniquely San Franciscan,” he read. “It unfolded so naturally, from starry-eyed evenings at the Exploratorium to Friday night food trucks and swaying to Mitski under a canopy of trees.” 

When Kerstin and I planned our wedding, that’s what we wanted. To be surrounded by everyone, we loved, swaying under a canopy of trees.

This was the one thing I was not allowed to plan.

By the end, I probably had three dozen spreadsheets. Nine versions of the guest list, three seating charts, five budgets, a list of DIY items, a minute-by-minute schedule for three days of wedding activities, a list of every accessory matched to every groomsman… but the wheelbarrow was off limits. 

“It’s a hazing, you’re not even supposed to know about it!” Kerstin said. “It’s an old English peasant tradition, called Chivaree, welcoming you into the family.” 

Every time I tried to help, plan for the wheelbarrow to be dropped off in advance, create a spreadsheet for who brings it to the venue and when it gets reassembled, I was blocked. “You can’t plan your own surprise!”

Everybody's feelin' warm and bright
It's such a fine and natural sight 

Three-and-a-half minutes is a long time to dance with a wheelbarrow. That was a surprise. “Is it getting heavy?” Kerstin whispered when I stopped spinning to pivot around children on the dance floor. 

Little Gemma and Hope, following Kerstin around, tugging on her shimmering gown. “Look mom, it’s a real princess!”

I was uneasy about our first dance.

Not that I’m shy in front of a crowd. But I can’t dance. When I took piano as an elective in school, the teacher gave me a metronome. Then he took it back. “This is never going to work.” 

It doesn’t matter, actually, when you’re out there with a real princess. “Just lift your arm for Kerstin to twirl,” my mom said. “Let the dress do the work.” 

I twirled her in the Mikado silk, I twirled her in the knit cotton skirt she changed into for cake cutting, I twirled her in the stainless steel wheelbarrow. 

And a Jay-Z song was on
And a Jay-Z song was on

Then my father-in-law was chanting – everybody was chanting, “Out that door! Out that door!”

Kerstin wanted a non-traditional wedding. “Husband and wife,” not “Man and wife.” Not being given away by anyone. Maybe getting married at the Chabot Science Center planetarium? But Chivaree, this tradition of the bride getting carted off in a wheelbarrow, me getting hazed … she always got a mischievous smile. 

We ended up not bucking tradition much. But I had vowed to honor her rebellious spirit. I leaned over to Kerstin, exalting in the wheelbarrow, and whispered, “gender parity.” She vaulted out, I plopped in, and – surrounded by cheering family – she carted me off into the night.

Then Kerstin ran back upstairs to pack up her dress.

 My father came back the next morning to pack up the bean bag chairs, the kids’ table, the movie projector. With a socket wrench in his pocket to disassemble the wheelbarrow once again for the drive home. 

“So where is the wheelbarrow now?” I ask a year later.

“Full of dirt in the backyard,” my dad is almost surprised I didn’t know. Who can guess where all the machinery goes after a wedding. All the flowers, lawn games, family photos, cocktail garnishes, boutonnieres and makeup kits. “We had three azaleas that I over-fertilized. I had to rip them out for some Mexican lilies.”

The turning-over of the lifecycle. Tilling of the soil. The peasants get rowdy, and return to the fields. Chivaree. Domestic life begins. New blooms sprout from the earth.

When I give my heart, it will be completely…

Standing below the orange dahlias, bright pink and yellow roses, blue larkspur. As we walked down the hill to the cocktail hour, Kerstin leaned in, “Did you know there was a hummingbird hovering over your head for the whole ceremony?”

I had no idea. Not until I had a drink in my hand and Corin came up to me, did I know Stines was fighting back tears during our vows. “Man, when your brother let go, I just lost it!”

I vowed to stand with Kerstin. “To be the strongest, gentlest man I can be. To love you no matter what happens. Full on.”

She vowed to keep sneaking dances in the kitchen. Never let anyone leave our table hungry. To make our marriage a safe haven of love. She said, “I believe in us.” 

If I'm gonna love you with all of my heart
This always remains…
Even as the world spins itself apart

It took a long time to find you…
But I finally found you.