Let's Celebrate!

We both discovered a love of drumming at an early age. Through community connections, we found ourselves taking drum lessons together at around age 13 at Walker’s house in Cabot, Vermont. We were both immediately smitten with each other, but we were so shy that we never let each other know about it. In fact, we could barely speak to each other. We continued to cross paths as we shared a friend community through Governor’s Institute on the Arts (summer camp), and various musical endeavors. Neither of us wanted to risk messing up the friendship or friend group by admitting to our crushes. Finally, 14 years later, while performing together at Falcon Ridge Festival we confessed our lifelong (debilitatingly verklempt) feelings for each other! Right away we took a road trip to the beach and this led to a few years of a beautiful-yet-long-distance relationship while Christiana completed her master’s degree in ethnomusicology in Boston and Walker worked at the photo department at UVM in Vermont. When Walker moved to Chicago, we went our separate ways while we built our careers and were out of touch for about 7 years. When we reconnected during the pandemic, it became clear how much we mutually missed and still appreciated one another. Finally, the floodgates opened and we returned to and embraced this lifelong love that provides us both a nurturing place to be ourselves, enjoy life, and pursue our hearts’ desires.

The day of our wedding, we or our family won’t be exactly available to answer questions. To that end our amazing friend Alexis Smith is using her super-powers-of-people herding to be our day-of coordinator. She’ll be wearing a name-tag and will make herself present as the person in charge that day. She’s the person to ask questions of :) Her phone # is 802-371-7239

August 13, 2022 Wedding Schedule: 3:00pm - 3:30pm People start to arrive at Millstone Hill, 29 Little John Rd, Barre, VT 05678 (You will see parking signs and then signs to walk across the field to the ceremony area). If you need to go to the bathroom before the ceremony to freshen up, these are directly inside the entrance to Celebration Barn (by the pond) before you cross the field. 3:30 - 4:15 Ceremony behind the Lodge (across the field from the reception barn and parking) 4:15 - 5:00 Cocktail & Appetizers & Photographs near the Lodge 5:00 - 5:10 Procession to the pond / Celebration Barn 5:10 - 5:30 Reception Welcome by the pond 5:30 - 6:45 Enter Barn and find seating. Dinner, Toasts, a few live songs from friends & fam. 6:45 - 10:00 Desert & Dancing Sundown to 10:30 Bonfire near the pond for those who want to mingle outside

Food: Jimmy Kennedy (of the legendary River Run restaurant in Plainfield) will be making the food. He's putting a Mexican twist on things at our request. We're super excited! There will be gluten free, vegetarian options, plus choice of chicken, pulled pork, or fish. It will be buffet style so you can get what you want, when you want. If you have a life-threatening allergy to certain foods please reply to this email and we’ll make sure we communicate it to Jimmy. Booze: We'll be providing wine, sparkling for toasts, a signature cocktail, and hard cider. However, for those who are otherwise oriented, it's a BYOB space! Bring beer, bring your favorite beverage of choice and share it with your table! Hard cider and wine (red, white, rosé), and non-alcoholic beverages will be available at the bar. By no means do you HAVE to bring anything. We got you covered! We'll have caffeinated ice coffee and ice tea at the end of the evening for those who need it! Gifts: We have a small house. Like really small. Because of this, our registry is solely a cash fund that goes toward building a little music studio / guest house plus some specific household items that we need (bed, dresser, etc). Largely, ANYTHING you contribute of any amount big or small goes toward a community spot for friends and family to gather! +1s: We understand it's super important to have a +1, it can feel lonely when you don't have your person with you. However, because our event space is very limited in capacity (it maxes at 125 people) and because we had nearly 100% yesses to this event (woohoo!!), this means you would know if you have an explicit +1. Don't worry though, everyone coming to this wedding are good peoples! If you are unsure of your +1 status, please check the RSVP page here: christiana-walker-hitchfest.love/rsvp. Just type your name in there and it will tell you. Weather: We can plan for everything but the weather. This is a rain-or-shine event. If it's downpouring we may gather in the barn and hold the ceremony or wait a few minutes until the thunderstorm has passed us by. Bring a raincoat or poncho and boots as backup in case things get wild! Safety Protocols: Two sides of the barn are largely open to the outside (and still under shelter) so there is pretty good ventilation. That said, we are asking everyone to voluntarily rapid-test with a negative result before arriving. We suggest doing two: a nose swab test + a throat swab test as the newest BA5 is somewhat hard to detect. Masking is optional for those who feel the need to: no pressure either way. Driving or Staying?: Make sure you have a designated driver or a place to stay on site! If needed there is extra camping spots if you feel like you can't safely drive that evening. So if you think this might happen, bring a tent and plan ahead! Camping spots are $15/person night (or $25 for a tent with 2). Please reserve that with Frankie at Millstone Hill: 802-578-2525.

We have three amazing people stepping up to do some photographs the day of. J Carrier (friend and photographer, artist, and now printmaker will be taking photographs of the ceremony). Pradip Malde (mentor to so many, teacher, artist, and friend) will be taking portraits after the ceremony. And Victor Yañez-Lazcano, friend, groomsman, colleague, professor, artists doing some photographs of the reception. But, the more photographs and/or video the better! To that end, if you post stuff on social media tag it #hitchfest2022 and we’ll be able to gather everything in one place. If you want to send us photos from your phones, we’ve set up a special drop box for it, just txt the pics to 8028214451