I went to Oberlin, a small liberal arts college tucked into the flat farmland of northeast Ohio. Its compact campus boasts an eclectic mix of architecture—from 1800s stonework to Cass Gilbert’s red-roofed buildings, to the hulking concrete slab of a library—that magically melds together into something haphazard but beautiful.
The students are also haphazard but beautiful. They’re individual and thinkers and quirky and they love to dance and sing and argue and walk barefoot and occasionally dress in drag. Obies are a unique breed, which is why so many of them marry each other (one apocryphal number has it at 85%). My daughter’s principal (class of ’87) is married to another Obie. My magazine mentor married an Obie she got back in touch with at her Oberlin reunion. And Oberlin gave me my husband, whom I met when I was nineteen. So the wedding I went to this past weekend in Beacon—another Obie-to-Obie union—had a kind of magical feeling to it, due in no small measure to the fact that about three quarters of the guests had gone to Oberlin. There was individuality everywhere, from the intricate felt boutonnieres and table flowers hand-made by the bride to the ceremony, which had all of the guests congregated in a circle around the bride and groom, each of us coming forward to bind their hands together with a blue ribbon. As the party ended, one Obie (a theater major) plucked out her ukulele and a group gathered in the dark and began to harmonize. Maybe it was the mint juleps, but I felt, in that moment, like I was back on Tappan Square, hangin’ with my tribe.
PS I was not the wedding photographer, these were all taken for fun and under the influence of bourbon
PPS I am totally excited to see the wedding photographer's work. Jesse Anders was super fun and funny and you should check out his work.
