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She and Eric fell into deep and true love amidst the bubbly hiss of our soda fountain, the soda syrup bottles arrayed in a rainbow’s spectrum and promise, the incessant ring of an antique cash register’s bell which awards wings to countless angels, and the constant hubbub of friends, family, and strangers who helped to nurture, tender, and witness their growing affection. The wedding occurred at the historic Roycroft Inn in East Aurora New York, founded by the American visionary Elbert Hubbard (Mr. Hubbard was a renegade and an eccentric who wore an expansive, ever-brimming hat atop his head, to don the “thinkery” beneath which was equally larger-than-life. He was a romantic and an individualist who held a sky-deep belief in handcrafting goods, and impregnating every produced artifact, printed page, spoken word, and placed footstep with as much meaning and self-awareness as possible.)
The Inn was constructed and furnished with the ideals, hard work, and sheer creative force of "the Roycroft, " a most impressive art colony in the history of the United States. The bride and groom selected this location because it mirrored like no where else {save for 116 Market Street} the values, idyllic nutrition, spiritual balance, and full-blossomed creativity that binds and sustains the entirety of themselves. Kiersten has had an interest in Arts and Crafts (a British-based movement which Hubbard brought to America with his own reinvented style) for some time now, and her family hails from nearby Buffalo. It is with first-hand testimony that I can relay to you that the whole thing transpired with through-and-through magic. A puffy blanket of snow enwrapped the village which thousands of artisans called home; and the inn housed dozens of guests who knew the bride and groom throughout their childhoods, scholastic careers, workplaces, or some combination therein.
The ceremony took place at a cozy church which was hardly distinguishable from the tumbling snow around it, and from which hung on the edges of its roof weeping icicles. Brother and fellow co-proprietor of “the Fountain” Ryan Berley was the best man, and read from the pulpit the selection of Psalm 19, issuing this appropriate bit of scripture: “The sun lives in the heavens where God placed it and moves across the skies as radiant as a bridegroom going to his wedding,” For indeed the sun was shining through the stained glass chapel windows and the bridegroom did look, if I might say, rather sunshiny, with the smile of his lifetime underneath his signature moustache.
Ryan went on to further supplicate, declaring that “God’s laws are pure, eternal, and just! They are more desirable than gold. They are sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb.” This line of scripture would be put to the test that evening during the reception when, for dessert, our “Rose Honeycomb” ice cream was served by the newlyweds who issued the ceremonial “first scoop” with a heart-shaped dipper. The purity and desirability of the Diety’s laws may get the blue-ribbon, but we’d like to think that that evening, our ice cream placed an honorable second.The pastor who married the two was an old college chum of Eric’s from William and Mary, and after their exchange of “I do”s, he enclosed the two soda jerks into their life of holy matrimony. We wish them all the love and happiness that our beating hearts can. For additional photographs, check out the amazing blog: http://amypphotos.blogspot.com/2011/01/kiersten-and-eric.html
Speaking of love, happiness, and hearts, we appear to be right smack-dab in the middle of the season for it! Yes, once again, St. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and you can trust with certainty that we’re doing our honest best to bring about the holiday with romance and class. Expected to see underneath glass domes the finest hand-rolled French-styled truffles that your eyes could catch or your tastebuds know. We’ll also be bringing out chocolate-dipped strawberries, jars full of conversation hearts, sugared fruit jellies, Jordan almonds (in white, pink, and red.) and we will be featuring our staple “Broken Hearts Sundae” (for those of you with the real thing, we hope that you’re on the mend to a full recovery.)
Additionally, we will be featuring the “Love Potion Ice Cream Soda”, made with Nesbitt’s Strawberry Soda (The company began in 1927 in starry Los Angelos, and in the 40’s and 50’s was advertised by the then-unknown knock-out Marilyn Monroe) and a scoop of our homemade Strawberry Ice Cream (our strawberry ice cream is one of the most difficult flavors to master, we’ve created a sort of jam base to the ice cream in addition to studding it with farm-fresh strawberries. Its flavor is exquisite.) along the rim of the fluted glass will be placed a quartered strawberry, representing each blood-surged chamber of the heart that palpitates madly when entranced by the spell of a lover’s glare.
That’s about all there is this go-around, dear readers. We wish that Love, in all its sacred manifestations, we will be with you, and that you will be with it. For Love cannot perish, only transform. For what force constructs the blossom and its sweet fragrance from the cold and chaos? Love itself.
It is better to find Love in peril than peril in Love,
The Franklin Fountain
