We actually had two special days half a year apart. Eloping was a spontaneous decision—we got hitched a couple weeks later. It was Martin Luther King Day and Greenfield Town Hall was closed, so we found ourselves getting married in the house of a local justice of the peace, Debbie. Our friend Jason attended, thinking he was meeting us to move a couch, bottle of Tylenol in hand to ease a sore back. When he got there we told him that he'd be our witness and photographer. So it was us, in suit and gown, with Jason in his usual hoodie and baseball cap, and the justice, a lovely woman named Debbie. We said our vows under a "Gone Skiing!" sign between her living room and kitchen. It was perfect. After a whirlwind "mini-moon" at Foxwoods, we set to planning our we-ran-off-and-got-married-six-months-ago bash, a big, casual summer party at the Schuetzen Verein at Barton Cove in Gill, which had a lovely indoor-outdoor pavilion on the Connecticut. Our nearest and dearest, their families and dogs, food and drink, and music abounded. We reread our vows. It put a wonderful communal seal on what we'd made legal back in January. When the party was over, a few friends were staying at the adjacent campsite and we went and sat around the fire for a while before heading home to tell our cat Mec all about it.