"By the Sea, By the Sea"

“…by the beautiful sea”..  as the old song goes. We humans seem to have a fascination with getting married by the sea. I wonder why that is?

I am no exception. When Beth and I had our Commitment Ceremony 10 years ago, we did it at the Portland Head Light overlooking Casco Bay…. facing the sea. We were not alone that year. The facility is available from mid-May to mid-October, and EVERY weekend was booked for a wedding, and we got the last available date for that year. 

In May, I wrote about the wedding party from Georgia, Texas, and California, that had never been to Maine, but came to Searsport for a long weekend because… they wanted a wedding by the sea.

This past weekend, my youngest daughter, Amanda, had her Commitment Ceremony at the Vesper Hills Children’s Chapel in Rockport, Maine… it was a LOVELY event, and you guessed it… facing the sea. 

When I mentioned the topic while sitting in the Brick House Restaurant (next to Coastal Coffee), my friend Steve mentioned that 10 years ago, when he and his current wife were on vacation in Hawaii, she had dropped him off at a hiking trail so he could spend the day in a rain forest, pursuing his hobby of photography. As she drove around the island she thought, “What a lovely spot to get married.” She got a marriage license, and proposed to Steve when she picked him up later in the day. Wise man that he is, he said “Yes.” Three days later they were wed… overlooking the sea.

The co-owner of the Brickhouse Restaurant, overhearing our conversation chimed in. “I eloped to Maine twelve years ago,” she said, “to get married in Ogunquit, (Maine).”  Angie and her hubby were wed at a spot in Ogunquit called “Marginal Way”, because the rocky coast, as she said… “looked like Hawaii, and it was… by the sea.”

All this got me to thinking (always a risky proposition with me). Maybe Darwin didn’t get it right. Perhaps we are not evolved from apes, but got here because a sea nymph jumped out of the ocean. She had probably gotten tired of everything being wet and clammy… and decided to give dry land a try… and she liked it…. and STAYED. Maybe our fascination with weddings by the sea is to make a connection to our earliest ancestors -  sea nymphs. I have no scientific proof of this, of course, but… you know…. just thinking…