Monday, June 15, 2009

a wedding reading

This weekend I was away at a beautiful wedding. I was honored to be included in the ceremony, as the bride and groom asked me to do a reading. They told me to pick whatever I wanted to, but as we all work together creating children's books, that a children's book might be appropriate.

Well, imagine the pressure! I enlisted the help of some friends to come up with ideas. I went into the library and got a list of books about love from Betsy Bird, I went into B&N and enlisted the help of my friend (and Meghan's) Julia Sarcone Roach while she was working in the children's section, and she in turn put the challenge to some of her coworkers and came up with a list of possibilities. I also chose some song lyrics and poems and came up with a short list of eight possibilities that I decided to run by the couple, but they wouldn't even open the document, saying that they preferred to be surprised on the day of. I hadn't decided what to read as of last weekend at Grace's book launch, and had Libby and Grace weigh in on their favorites.

Are you curious about what I chose in the end? Here is the reading I did at the wedding (I had asked a friend to take pictures of me, but had forgotten my camera was on the video setting, so I have the whole thing on tape!)



My reading was an abridged version of The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger, which was the top choice of the B&N crew. Thank you for your help, Julia!

And thank you, Tracy and Kirk, for the honor of being a part of your special day. I know you'll have a beautiful life together.

7 comments:

yamster said...

Awww... that was lovely!

Marinela said...

It seems like you had a lot of fun :)

Libby Koponen said...

Beautiful reading (and dress) -- and great editing! :-)

Elaine Magliaro said...

Alvina,

Great selection for a reading! I love THE LITTLE YWLLOE LEAF.

It looks like it must have been a lovely ceremony.

Anna Alter said...

Beautiful!!

C A R I N said...

wow. i just stumbled across this today, my 16th [gasp] wedding anniversary.i'm so moved and honored that you chose to read the little yellow leaf. congrats to your friends on their wedding.

carin berger

Denise | Chez Danisse said...

so perfect for a wedding! good call.