In 1993, one year after returning to the States, I met my husband, David. (How we met is in itself an interesting story, but not the one I’m to tell here.) Nine months after that, we got married.

Both of us having rather unusual spiritual backgrounds for the time (David, like me, practiced meditation and, no longer like me, followed a guru), so the wedding plans we carefully crafted were by no means run-of-the-mill. For one thing, we wrote our own vows (some traditional ones mixed with a smattering and rewording of some Ananda Marga ones); for another, instead of arranging a minister or rabbi, we lined up a friend licensed to perform weddings. And instead of a church or synagogue, we rented Laurel Hill Mansion, one of the lovely 18th- and 19th-century homes in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. (The mansion, we were told, would come with two people, a man and a woman in period dress, who would lend color to our proceedings and would be on hand if we had any questions.) The back yard, enclosed with a white picket fence, was the perfect size for a relatively small outdoor wedding. But what to do if it were to rain on the big day? We briefly considered, then rejected, the idea of renting a large tent, deciding instead to count on our luck. If it did rain, we reasoned, we could all squeeze into the house which, despite being called a mansion, was actually quite small and would clearly not accommodate the 70 or so guests we’d invited.

We’d noticed a good deal of trash around the property, outside the fence and in the parking areas, so the day before the wedding, we decided to go to the site and clean it up a bit. As it was a surprisingly chilly morning for the beginning of June, we donned jackets, then grabbed some work gloves and a few large garbage bags, and headed out the door. Standing stock still on the street, we looked at each other, puzzled looks on our faces, for where was David’s car? A white Toyota Tercel that had seen better days, it had been parked just up the street, two or three doors away, the night before . . . so where was it now? We stared at the now vacant spot until the truth sunk in: Stolen!

We never even considered the idea that to have one’s car stolen the day before one’s wedding could be a bad omen. Thankfully, we still had my car, an equally old Dodge Omni, in which, after reporting the theft, we drove post haste to the wedding site. Two hours and two stuffed-to-overflowing garbage bags later, we were back home. No word on the car, as there never would be: we’d been told that thieves had likely taken it to one of the innumerable chop shops in the city.

Our wedding day dawned bright and sunny. It had warmed up considerably: our luck, notwithstanding the theft of David’s car, had held, and it promised to be a beautiful day.

And so it was. Things mostly went without a hitch–except for the moment when, after setting out with a friend in her car for Laurel Hill (David had left earlier in mine), I realized a few blocks away from the house that I’d forgotten the rings! My friend delivered me to the mansion just in time. With relatives and friends gathered round, a friend played guitar and sang a song, “One Hand, One Heart”; we said our vows, exchanged rings, and the ceremony was over. We received our guests, and then they lined up at the buffet tables, filled their plates, and made their way to the tables draped with lavender linens.

After the meal, we posed at the table with the wedding cake while cameras snapped, then began cutting up the cake. David placed a piece onto a plate, which I took with two hands and held out to David’s mother, Franna.

“No!” my new mother-in-law called out, along with close to 70 other voices, holding out her hands, palms forward, as if pushing my offering away. I looked up, startled.

“You’re supposed to feed each other first,” she explained.

“Oh!” I said, feeling my face grow red, then quickly stuffed some cake into David’s mouth. He then feed me some as the cameras resumed their clicking and snapping and everyone clapped. Then I gave a piece to Franna, which she accepted, before distributing the rest, piece by piece, to everyone else.

Both of us had been clueless. The only weddings I was familiar with were Ananda Marga ones. In those, the newly-married couple would offer sweets to others before partaking themselves. The only non-Ananda Marga wedding I had attended before all those years away had been my brother Barry’s when I’d been 15. I hadn’t remembered anything at all about any cake exchange. And David? He hadn’t attended any weddings recently, and hadn’t remembered anything about the cake thing, either.

“You guys!” Franna said later. We all had a good laugh over it.