wedding in the afternoon

Saturday afternoon I officiated at the wedding of a young couple from my neighborhood. The wedding was held on the grounds of Greystone Mansion, in Beverly Hills. This is a beautiful old building that used to be owned by the Doheny family, a family with oil money.

There's a connection between the Doheny mansion and my own house in a circuitous way. Old man Doheny's business partner had a daughter named Daisy, who married an old silent film actor named Antonio Moreno. Moreno had been a successful leading man in silent films but was reduced to bit player status after talkies came in because his Spanish accent was too thick. So he married Daisy and then used her money to buy property in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles - then called Ivanhoe. He built a mansion for himself and Daisy on the top of the highest hill and then built several houses in the area, including mine, on Moreno Drive.

The wedding was beautiful. And a lovely location. But very hot, we're having a heat wave in Los Angeles. It was pretty to look out at the congregation and see dozens of pink and green parasols passed out by the wedding coordinator to protect the guests from the sun.