This column is about something too beautiful not to share. It’s about the convergence of community, weather, lifetimes and Sunset Hill Park. It just happens to be the story of my recent wedding.

Wooed over from the Maple Leaf neighborhood, Martin and his tribe married into my extended community of 22 years in Ballard and friends dating back five decades. He brought his Northwest past and present to merge with my hodgepodge of old neighborhood and new writing community, friends from my daughter’s passages through daycare, pre-school, elementary school, middle school, high school, soccer teams, pottery classes and mother-daughter book club.

But since starting this column, my ever-growing clan includes readers who offer estate jewelry when they learn of a need, roses from their gardens, lawn furniture and “whatever is needed.”

I’ve heard some couples mistake the wedding for the marriage, but who could resist planning a party to attract friends and family from across the globe? If it took marriage, so be it.

The goal was to throw a fun party and immersion for first-time visitors on why we love where we live. What I love best is my neighborhood, my slices of Ballard. The route 17 bus, the Goodwill and Secret Garden, the Farmers Market and Golden Gardens. The way everyone at The Scoop “really does know your name.” From dress to beer, it was going to be an (almost) All-Ballard day.

The wedding day dawned as dreary as just about any other that preceded it in June’s gloom. We picked up roses from a friend’s garden and five dozen Krumkake she’d prepared. Up to my chin in roses, we stopped to post the “Ceremony reservation” notice at Sunset Hill Park.

What initially ensued were the hours we’d vowed to avoid, the ones in which we worked ourselves into a sweat preparing the house and grounds. What had happened to the 10 a.m. helpers? Why did the first arrivals want to decorate rather than sweep?

Then my sister returned with 10 bouquets of flowers from Pike Place Market, my mother tore herself away from the World Cup and our “coordinator” Kim Paxton at The Scoop on 32nd Avenue Northwest got us some help in the form of a van drop-off and cheerful Ballard High School grads.

After that, it was out of our hands. Martin and I just got to move through a day of enchantment.

The sun broke about 2 p.m. The chairs were ferried to the park and set up. Female friends converged in my bathroom to apply make-up. The Veraci pizza oven arrived. The caterers arrived. The alley, decorated in tulle and flowers, became a “living room.” Kim’s daughter and her friends dotted the park in vintage Bella Umbrellas.

I had done the preparation, but then plans soared out of my hands like the balloons that would later escape and float off in a cloudless sky.

As Martin and I walked the half-mile up to the ceremony at Sunset Hill Park, the path had never been as beautiful or lush as it was dotted with the bright colors of my nieces and friends ahead of us.

At corners, Suzuki students of Celia Nicks were playing violins, placed along our path as an advance surprise by Kim, who had taken my visions and made them brighter and bolder.

Then at the park, another surprise; those little folded pieces of paper mailed across the country had worked like seeds. The magic blooms waiting in the park were a mass of friends and family with bright umbrellas, the garden beds and the backdrop of the Olympic Mountains. Did I mention it was perfect?

My friend Janis pressed a bouquet of sweet peas into my hands wrapped in a scarf blessed by a Tibetan Monk. The Belltown Pull-apart pedal cab drivers puffed into view, the final piece of all that was needed to ferry those who couldn’t walk the return procession. My daughter held my eyes and nodded as the minister asked the family to pledge love and acceptance.

Martin’s eyes were as blue as his shirt as he said very firmly, “I do.”

As we walked back down the middle of 34th Avenue Northwest, two college-age violinists led the way. Each younger violinist stepped or jumped from their sidewalk corner and joined the front of the procession. Along the route, people came out of their houses to watch and listen to this moving force of strings and color, laughter and love.

Afterwards the reception was a blur of great food, hot pizzas, Maritime beer, five kinds of cake and a spontaneous wall of congratulations along the side of our garage. There was hide-and-seek among children and connections revealed between all the guests. There was a glorious sunset and no apparent end to what poet Carol Levin later called, “The best party that ever occurred in the entire world.”

For Martin, the day was about marriage and the ever after. For me, there is this new “later in life” marriage and the moments that I will treasure like jewels: walking up to the park with just a few people and returning in the veritable embrace of violinists, strangers on the sidewalks and friends and family massing with us under umbrellas and the beauty of a day that was perfect in every way.

It was the Sunset Hill Wedding – a community union.

Peggy Sturdivant is co-author of “Out of Nowhere” with Robin Abel, about what happened to Abel’s daughter Maria Federici in 2004. The authors will be at Secret Garden Books at 7 p.m. on July 14th for a reading and discussion.