Brides Crystal Elvig and Jacqueline Beehler during photo-shoots, just before they tied the knot. 

I attended a truly new-age wedding of two 20-somethings last weekend at Maroni Meadows just south of Snohomish (www.maronimeadows.com/). My sis officiated and, though all the marriage trappings were thoroughly traditional, there was one wonderful twist — two brides!

One bride wore the traditional white lace gown with train; one bride wore light gray trousers, matching vest and a snappy dark turquoise bow tie. The wedding party wore turquoise one-bare-shouldered chemises with pearly-apricot heels.

Given away by her father, the bride in white is taking the last name of the bride in gray tux. The tux-bride, previously married to a fellow, has two adorable kids who participated in a tender and touching way: the 7-year-old girl strewing rose petals before the entrance of the white bride and the five year old boy wheeling his cousin (the tux-bride’s nephew) down the aisle in a big baby carriage with — almost — the rings on a satin pillow. (At the last minute about to tie the rings onto the pillow, the bride, an event planner and ever practical, said to my sister, “This is a disaster waiting to happen!” and instead gave them for safe keeping to her maid of honor.)

Good move; everything went like clockwork, right down to the couple’s first smooch.

At the reception, there was great food; a toast-roast; the bride’s bouquet was tossed (I actually caught it! but handed it over to a younger member of the single-girl crowd); the garter belt was thrown (on a football) to the single guys; the glowing couple danced the first dance to “Thinking Outloud,” by Ed Sheeran, and invited the kids to join them.

The father and bride celebrated with a tender swing around the dance floor, and then a rousing air-guitar rendition of “Oh Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns ‘N Roses. The Tri-Delta sisters circled the bride-in-white singing a special sister-we-love-you-forever song and flashing sorority hand signals. Line-dancing and general bogeying ensued until the fire pit came aglow and members of the crowd moved into S’mores mode.

It was a time for reuniting with folks I hadn’t seen for 15 years or more; a time for family stories; lots of laughter and a background hum of joy pretty much all afternoon and into the evening. After clean-up, wife and wife headed to Key West, Florida and have since been posting Facebook pictures of snazzy rental cars, elaborate multi-colored drinks with fruit and umbrellas, and beach scenes.

There were several remarkable things about this wedding. First was that it seemed so ordinary; and second that it was so extraordinary. Two women in love with each other, with kids, getting hitched. Big deal. Yet, all us old fogies were talking about how amazingly times had changed for gay couples, and so quickly. Meanwhile friends of the brides had so many other things on their minds — boyfriends, girlfriends, jobs, the Seahawks, or an epic Madden Battle for Air Supremacy (an XBox video game, I think).

The vows were one of my favorite parts of the ceremony because they included things like “I promise to always make the bed with the printed side of the sheet down; I promise to always take the middle seat, because I know you like to look out the window; I promise to agree to disagree, even when I really, really disagree; and I promise to always keep a first aid kit handy and a pack of baby wipes in the car, because let’s be real, you and your son are two of the clumsiest people I’ve ever met. And I couldn’t imagine growing old with anyone else.”

The day after the wedding, a New York Times article by Ada Calhoun echoed some thoughts I couldn’t keep out of my head, even as I was wiping a tear off my cheek for these two love birds.

We are human, we stumble and hurt those we love in ways we can barely imagine until they happen. As Ada writes, “At weddings, I do not contradict my beaming newlywed friends when they talk about how they will gracefully succeed where nearly everyone in human history has floundered. I only wish I could tell them that they will suffer occasionally in this marriage — not only sit-com grade squabbles, but possibly even dark-night-of-the-soul despair.

“It’s easy for people who have never tried to do anything as strange and difficult as being married to say marriage doesn’t matter, or to condemn those who fail at it, or to mock those who even try.”

You can’t be “each other’s best friend every single minute forever. It’s good to aim high, but it’s quite probable you will let each other down many times in ways both petty and profound. Epic failure is part of being married, part of what marriage means [is] sometimes hating this other person but staying together because you promised you would. And then weeks later, waking up and loving him again, living him still”

As someone who has never been married (though I have wanted to be a few times), I am rooting for these kids. They’re young, they’re in love, they’re idealistic and have huge, as yet hidden, challenges in front of them. But for now, the wedding was, as Deni Maroni, the property owner said, “very moving. This is our third gay wedding of women and they have all been so authentic, so real.”

One piece of advice for them comes from Ada’s mother who wisely said, “The way to stay married is not to get a divorce.” Another good tip I learned while watching the photographer buzz around taking wedding portraits is “don’t let your bouquet cover your cleavage.”

I think that could cover it — a short-term and a long-term plan.