♥ TrueLove Burn

Had the experience of a lifetime this past weekend. My husband and I drove about 13 hours to West Virginia to see my childhood best friend get married on a mountaintop! We'll call her Kass. Kass and I have been close since we were in third grade together, even if growing up means we live far apart from each other now and have very different lives. I cried when she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids; I wouldn't miss that wedding for the world.

Now Kass isn't your run-of-the-mill bride. She's what's called a "burner," which are people who go to "burns," which I understand are basically festivals with camping, music, dancing, and...well, things burning. There were a few fire pits at the wedding, but also there were burning statues! Check out this three-headed "hellmingo" that would spit huge clouds of flame if you pressed a button. There was also a statue with a phonograph and a dragon, but I didn't get a great picture of it.

Anyway, that's all to say, her wedding was a burn! Many people camped out on the festival site (not me though, I'm an indoor cat), and on the day of there were tapestries and flowers everywhere, a big DJ booth, a huge ring for dancing and fire-spinning, fire pits, flaming statues, and about a hundred very joyful people. They called it the TrueLove Burn :]

Being an indoor cat, I have never been to one of these before and can't really envision myself doing so outside of this lol. But we had a LOT of fun. I was really impressed by how much everyone was willing to leap in and help with anything, without being asked, at any point in the wedding. Before the ceremony, it rained heavily and got water all over the arch and ceremony seating, but people jumped in to clean off all the rainwater. (Did I mention they played a bass-boosted club remix of Toto's Africa to encourage the rain to stop?) During the ceremony, a huge gust of wind blew over the main tent with tables--half the audience jumped up and ran to reinstate the runaway tent, then they all came back and calmly sat through the remainder of the ceremony. It was amazing to see how much people were devoted to making sure Kass' day went as smoothly as possible.

Kass' new husband, E, clearly loves and cherishes her. He was a big goof ball, wailing love songs to her, dancing with her and dipping her and kissing her often, writing silly jokes in his vows but also telling her how hard he was prepared to work to give her the life she deserves. I'm biased, but Kass is stupid beautiful, talented, funny, joyful, friendly, hard-working, and more. I think Kass deserves someone who worships the ground she walks on, and it seems like she really found that person in E. I couldn't be happier for her, and her family was overjoyed as well.

The bride did some AMAZING fire spinning routines that I would love to share with you, but I don't want to put her face out there for all to see, so instead I have a grainy photo of another wedding guest fire spinning with...some kind of pole with arms on the end that lit up. I've no idea what to call it. I'll never forget though, come 10:30 or so, I spoke to her mom (not a burner) to say, "Hey, we have a long drive tomorrow so we're going to head out" and she looked at me, with the fire spinners dancing behind her, and she said, "Us too, it's getting weird here." LOL

Overall, we had a nice time driving through the beautifully green forests of WV, even if it was another 13 hours to get back home. Here's a few more pics. Hope everyone has a good weekend this week :]