Lovethe Ozarks
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Outdoors/234933/
JASPER — Here comes the bride, looking as radiant as she ever will.
Her wedding dress is nice, white and simple — knee-length, leaving no trailing train to drag in the dust or snag on a root as she moves down a rocky slope and onto the top of a bluff overlooking a deep, green pool of the Little Buffalo River. She also watches her step as she moves in stately procession. If she stumbled, she could plunge right into the river. Kaploosh. The barefoot groom waits where a narrow lip of the bluff projects over the river to form a natural “altar.” He is wearing a soft, silky shortsleeve shirt and shorts to match, but it’s obvious the ensemble didn’t come cheap.
Standing beside the groom was an itinerant minister of properly solemn mien. Many know him as Robert Ginsberg, cave explorer and owner of Uncle Sam’s Safari Outfitters, but not as a tier of nuptial knots.
Yet he claims to have been duly “ordained” in the Universal Life Church on the Internet. His recent mention of performing an outdoor wedding for the daughter of close friends seemed a bit quaint at first mention.
Turns out, though, that along with paddling, hiking, biking and other outdoor activities, getting hitched is quite common and popular among couples who have fallen in love in and with the Ozarks.
Weddings are held wherever beautiful places are to be found — from the tops of mountains to hidden hollows, along streams and around lakes, next to waterfalls and springs, and under rock shelters.
One of the epicenters of outdoor nuptials in Northwest Arkansas is Eureka Springs, which bills itself as the “Marriage Capital of the South,” where 4, 000 to 5, 000 weddings take place annually.
Many occur at Blue Springs Heritage Center, Lake Leatherwood, historic springs and in the parks around Beaver Lake, according to Jeff Feldman, president of the Greater Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Lofty places with spectacular panoramas are particularly popular, especially those in state and national forest parks and on other public lands.
SATURDAYS ARE TAKEN Panoramas, of course, abound at Mount Magazine State Park, and so do outdoor weddings, according to Heidi Ryan, who books weddings for the mountaintop park. “We are now only accepting bookings for 2009,” she said Friday, noting that all the remaining Saturdays of this year are taken. She said many weddings take place on the terrace of the park’s lodge, but some couples prefer the more natural settings at overlooks around the park’s Cameron Bluff. Views in conjunction with rustic stone-and-timber structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and Work Projects Administration in the 1930 s are choice sites, such as the overlook shelter on Yellow Rock Trail at Devil’s Den State Park near Winslow.
Some brides and grooms, however, are willing to go to greater lengths to reach wedding spots of special significance, such as hiking three miles round trip to get married on Hawksbill Crag, which is recognized as the most photographed natural feature in the state.
The Buffalo National River, with its reputation as one of the country’s most scenic streams, draws couples in droves to its bluff-lined parks and nearby waterfalls, rock shelters and springs, according to Mike Mills at the Buffalo Outdoor Center in Ponca.
Mills is authorized to perform weddings and has done dozens since the 1980 s.
“I’ve done weddings at Steel Creek [Campground ] standing on a gravel bar in front of Ruark Bluff, at Hawksbill Crag and in the rock shelter next to Eden Falls on the Lost Valley Trail,” Mills said. His most unusual ceremonies have been aboard hot-air balloons while floating over the Ozarks. “I’ve done about a dozen of those,” he said. My outdoor experiences did not include weddings before Saturday, when Ginsberg extended an invitation to the nuptials of Erin Jordan and Michael Rains of Fayetteville in a private setting on the Little Buffalo River.
GETTING HITCHED OUTSIDE Arriving at the parking area, my first glimpse of the bride was not getting out of a limousine, but sitting at ease astride a four-wheeler as she shuttled around with wedding preparations. Not many brides do that on their wedding day. The next unusual aspect of the affair was learning that more than 150 guests invited to the ceremony would be “chauffeured” from the parking area to the river while sitting on bales of hay aboard an open trailer pulled by a pickup.
It was easy to see why Jordan and Rains had picked the location. It was undeniably beautiful, with an expanse of forest extending to a series of stairstep ledges that dropped down the top of a bluff and its projecting lip hanging 25 feet above the river.
Although the wedding was decidedly way out in the sticks, it was not a countrified affair in the hillbilly sense. Rather, it reflected the couple’s shared interests.
Both 26 years old and graduates of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, they had bonded through their love of outdoor activities, Jordan revealed when we had a chance for a brief visit.
“We love camping, canoeing, horsebacking, hiking and just hanging out on the river,” she said.
“A church wedding never crossed our minds. If we hadn’t been able to have the wedding here, we would probably have gotten married on the Buffalo River where my mother got married.”
Obviously, outdoor weddings are something of a tradition in the Jordan family.
It also soon became apparent that some outdoor weddings last much longer than traditional indoor affairs, and that the activities can happen in reverse order. Play came first at this union. When the hay ride brought us to the wedding site at midafternoon, there were already a couple of dozen guests engaged in recreation. Along the river below the bluff, some were swimming, a few were wading downstream to try their luck fishing and one couple was paddling a canoe.
TAKING IN THE SCENERY On the grounds above the bluffs, kids were swinging on a rope, teams were pitching horseshoes and others simply sat in the shade, taking in the scenery. These activities would go on for more than three hours as more and more guests arrived. Although many would be the young friends of the bride and groom, three generations of the Jordan and Rains families were on hand, including many youngsters. The next major happening was the wedding banquet.
However, it didn’t involve waiting for caterers wearing white hats to arrive with their shiny pots and pans filled with fancy food.
Outdoor weddings call for outdoor cooking, and doing it yourself with traditional Ozark fare.
The entree consisted of a whole hog weighing 220 pounds that Eric Jordan and Frank Brown had been slow-cooking in a large cast-iron smoker for two days.
“Just a good ol’ razorback,” Eric said.
As mealtime neared, Dutch ovens filled with potatoes and green beans were piled with live coals, another smoker was set to roasting bushels of corn in their husks, and ice-cold watermelons were pulled from vats.
As playtime came to an end, there was no lack of helping hands getting the food ready for serving.
Even without the popping of champagne corks or the cutting of a three-tier cake, the banquet was quite a feast.
As the sun began to set and the guests arranged themselves along the stair-step ledges above the bluff, the wedding ceremony began with proper solemnity.
With the bride, groom, best man and bride’s mother assembled on the natural altar, Ginsberg read some touching passages as he led the couple through their vows.
The ceremony was as moving as any wedding anywhere, but the pretty setting made it especially memorable.
Like all weddings, the ceremony ended with cheers of jubilation after the couple’s final embrace.
However, there was one major difference at the end.
The groom, the best man and Jordan’s father, brother and uncles all took flying leaps into the river.
Kaploosh.