There’s a sort of music that flows from truly joyful people, and over Memorial Day weekend 2010, a symphony played at the Reid State Park group shelter.

The Lipperts’s wedding plans had intrigued me from the start. It was a cold January day when Wiscasset resident Tim Lippert called to reserve our popular shelter area for his son Jesse’s wedding. Lippert explained that since Jesse and wife-to-be Valerie DeLoach lived in Philadelphia, the task of making the necessary Reid State Park arrangements had fallen to him.

“Philadelphia?” I asked, a little taken aback. “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?”

“Yes, Philadelphia Pennsylvania,” Lippert responded with an easy laugh.

“They’re seriously coming all the way from Philadelphia to get married at our shelter?”

Lippert chuckled again, assuring me that DeLoach and Jesse’s decision had been easy. Reid State Park was the couple’s favorite place on earth, and they were very much looking forward to exchanging wedding vows on the shelter lawn on Sunday, May 30.

I was tickled pink that Jesse and DeLoach were traveling so far to be married at Reid, and I gleefully took Lippert up on his invitation to swing by the shelter during my daily rounds; I definitely wanted to meet the couple who also had formed such an emotional attachment to my favorite Maine state park.

I didn’t realize that I would meet two such couples, on a picture-perfect day that weathermen agreed was the most glorious Memorial Day Sunday in years.

Lippert and his wife, Susan, greeted me on that splendid day as if I were an old friend, cheerfully introducing me to Jesse, who was beaming as brightly as the afternoon sun.

“Jesse, it’s so nice to meet you,” I said, smiling back at the handsome, tuxedo-clad groom as he warmly shook my hand. “I’m delighted you came all this way to get married at Reid.”

As I congratulated Jesse, his father filled me in on a little family history. “You see,” Lippert explained, “it was 32 years ago nearly to the day when I married my wife, right here in this exact same spot.”

“You’re kidding, that’s fantastic,” I exclaimed. I looked at the Lippert family standing together against the backdrop of the tastefully decorated shelter lawn, and something came together in the cosmos with an almost audible click.

“So, besides the natural beauty, there’s a real emotional connection to my family here,” Jesse added. I nodded, beginning to grasp how truly momentous this day must be for all of them.

“Yeah, the weight of it is … pretty powerful stuff,” Susan told me later with a quiet sigh.

DeLoach was a stunning bride.

A small dressing tent had been erected in the far corner of the shelter lawn, where she and her attendants had ample room to perform their final touches in privacy, out of sight of the gathering guests.

DeLoach made tiny adjustments to her headpiece in the full-length mirror someone had the foresight to bring along, while bridesmaids applied sunscreen to bare shoulders and fine-tuned each other’s make-up.

“You look … amazing,” I whispered to DeLoach, trying to find a word that adequately captured her radiance. She was chic and elegant, and her perfectly tailored ivory gown flowed around her as if it had been specifically designed to catch the ocean breeze that day.

“Sam,” DeLoach said, putting down her veil and headpiece long enough to take both my hands in hers. “I’m so glad you stopped by,” she said graciously. I was so glad I had stopped by too, and I thanked DeLoach for letting me share in her wonderful story.

“What did you say when Jesse wanted you to leave Philadelphia and get married 500 miles away?” I asked her, still clasping her hands.

“Actually, it was my idea,” DeLoach told me with a smile as wide as the ocean behind her. “I had visited here many times with Jesse, and I knew what a special place it was for his whole family.”

DeLoach’s 7-year-old daughter, Charla, was thoroughly enjoying the prep-time too. She had a joyful heart, and in her own flawless dress, identical in color to her mother’s, she merrily flitted back and forth among the group of women.

Later, as Charla walked with perfect poise down the aisle and took her place of honor with the wedding party, the beautiful little girl who had seemed so childlike moments before carried herself with an air of grace and sophistication so well beyond her years that it gave me goose bumps.

A few seconds later, DeLoach emerged from the tent looking as if she’d stepped off the cover of every bridal magazine ever printed. When her exquisite gown wafted in the breeze as she retraced the path that Jesse’s mother had walked 32 years prior, there wasn’t a person who didn’t gasp aloud.

And when Jesse bent down to say a separate set of vows to little Charla, his voice catching with emotion as he presented her with a smaller version of the ring he had given DeLoach, there wasn’t a dry eye on that lawn, including mine.

Then, beneath the brilliant blue Reid State Park sky, as gentle waves applauded in the background, Valerie DeLoach became Valerie Lippert, and a family was born.

For 25 years, I’ve watched people make memories at Reid State Park. Rarely however, have I had the privilege to witness an event that so beautifully and triumphantly left mere happiness in the dust as it entered a realm of pure joy that spanned three generations.

Susan Lippert was right; the weight of it is pretty powerful stuff indeed.

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