ANEW: A Wedding in the Park
On Love, Public Spaces, and the Beauty of Showing Up
Strolling through Tower Grove Park in the southern part of Saint Louis is like walking back in time. A canopy of trees arches over dense pathways that shelter birds and other quiet creatures. At the far end of the park, an underground stream—newly rediscovered—bubbles up from the ground, not far from where a No Kings rally had just wrapped up near Grand Avenue.
Unlike the city’s grander public spaces—Forest Park comes to mind—Tower Grove was designed for beauty to meet the people where they were. It was a balm, offered by Henry Shaw in the 19th century, when Saint Louis, stubborn in its rivertown aspirations, was choking on its own industrial soot. There was a time, it’s said, when freshly washed laundry, left out to dry, would be charcoal gray by day’s end. The cost of forgetting was more work.
But here in Tower Grove, Shaw planted something else. A place for people to learn about plants and horticulture. A place for butterflies. For stillness. A place to imagine another way.
It reminds me of the Forest Preserves of southern Chicagoland, where I grew up. Wealth and the state each left their own legacy of green space—brief refuges from factory weeks and hard edges. On this one day in June, I found myself wondering how we, now, mark sacred transitions. Many have fled churches and traditional houses of worship. But still—still—we gather.
This day, I bore witness to not one but two weddings within shouting distance of each other. And by “people,” I mean me—I was captivated.
One wedding took place at the ornate Piper Palm House. Outside, the wedding party queued nervously, making sure that everything—and by everything, I do mean the bride—looked just right. Bartenders and waitstaff arranged champagne buckets and tablecloths, florals set just so on the patio. Guests waited in cool shade, dressed and ready to be seen witnessing something important.
Just a few hundred feet away, under the bandshell, a different story unfolded. No fanfare. No guests—at first. Just a groom in a kilt and an officiant shifting their weight from one leg to the other, glancing around. A few conscripted park benches, a landscape worker pausing with curiosity. Two o’clock came and went. Then two-fifteen. The groom’s pacing grew more animated, the kind of jitter that feels like either panic or a practical joke.
I wondered aloud if I should ask him about the kilt—specifically, what was under it. My friend dared me. But before I could summon the nerve, a silver Kia rolled into view, slow and steady. A father—linen coat, ivory boater hat—rounded the car to open the door for the bride. Her mother stayed seated in the front, watching from a comfortable distance. That distance said everything and nothing: I hope this one goes better than ours did.
The officiant softened. The groom's face lit up, a smile equal parts relief and disbelief. I don’t think he knew she was coming. But she did.
And just like that, a wedding happened.
I snapped a few pictures, thinking about my own wedding, twenty-seven years ago, also in a public park—The Brazil Room and Gardens in Berkeley, California. The rain held off just long enough for a ceremony and marriage that, in the end, did not hold. But that day, like this one, was about trying.
That’s what I walked away with—not the ache of past commitments but the absurd, beautiful resilience of trying again. The gathered few. The groom in his kilt. The late-arriving Kia. It all said, “Hope lives here.” Even the trees whispered it.
To plant something that may not bloom in our lifetime—to plan, to show up, to say yes in public—that is a kind of holy.
As life pulls us in, as it breaks our hearts and reshapes our stories, there will always be people who show up in parks to bear witness. Who say, quietly or aloud, We hope this goes well. We want this to work. We believe something good can come next.
That is what a wedding is. That is what Tower Grove Park held for me that day. A curated landscape. A ceremony on the edge of belief. And the reminder that something just might be saved—going forward, always and forever.
Curated Listening:
The number one wedding and prom song from my generation of friends was “Always and Forever” by the band Heatwave. Enjoy Heatwave’s testament to going the distance HERE.