Wedding Party

With the Bride

Matron of Honor Cassandra Lammers (Alexandria, Virginia)

Johanna and Cassie first met on the bus to school.  Johanna cooked for Cassie for a week when they were stranded in New Jersey in a snowstorm. They visited Nora in Asheville and Cassie’s dog Dorie chewed on Johanna’s shoes; after Dorie acquired fleas; garlic therapy and dog mints were administered. Cassie is a production manager for the Washington Performing Arts Society and knows how to make a show come together—her best show being her own wedding to Hendrik in 2006.

Bridesmaid Nora Deveny-Valiela (Austin, Texas)

Nora’s polylingual background helped Johanna through French class.  Nora drew faeries for which Johanna composed poems, and encouraged Johanna’s political and humanitarian advocacy. After years of travel through Europe and South America, Nora makes sure things run smoothly for young students at the Live Oak Montessori School in Austin.

Bridesman Wm. Nicholas Clemens (New York, New York)

Nick currently leads a secretive life of books in New York City.  Nick has recent wedding experience from his own matrimonial linking with Kristi in October in Vermont.  He has been known to drive shopping carts, but not cars, through restaurant drive-thru lanes. 

Junior Bridesmaid Rachel Jones (Mechanicsville, Virginia)

Rachel is Tom’s niece and has had many adventures at Rapidan, including an encounter with a bear in the Rapidan River.

Flower Girl Catherine Beuchel (Elkridge, Maryland)

Katie is Tom’s niece. She will be seven years old at the wedding.  Her interests include swimming, dance, and piano. She is also a Girl Scout and an aspiring writer.

Flower Girl June Keating (Baltimore, Maryland)

June is daughter to friends of Johanna.  She enjoys taking care of all their pets, from cats and dogs to rats and mice.  She can be found on stage performing, going on hikes with her family, or telling her younger brother what to do.

With the Groom

Best Man Derrick Dasenbrock (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Tom met Derrick in Civics class at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt. With two classmates, they hatched a scheme to evade the final project by creating a needlessly complex mock trial murder mystery. Later, they managed to capsize a canoe on a quiescent lake in Vero Beach, Florida, hike the Black Hills of South Dakota, and camp on a forest-fire ravaged freezing mountaintop in Washington’s North Cascades.  For employment, Derrick ensures that bridges and roadways for the Minnesota Department of Transportation have solid foundations. Derrick and Tom were on a backcountry hike in Yoho, British Columbia when three local women said “You guys aren’t bad for Americans.” Derrick snowboards while Tom skis in Colorado every December.

Groomsmaid Karen Wallace (Greenbelt, Maryland)

Tom met Karen when she interned where Tom worked, at Outreach Technologies, the first of the two dot-com startups they co-staffed. Since then, Tom sold Karen her house in Greenbelt. When not administrating databases, Karen creates highly festive glass art in her kiln. Karen was chief whistleblower in the award-winning Greenbelt Reel Lawnmower Society Precision Drill Team along with Tom and Johanna. Karen is also chief costumer of the KineticBaltimore.com team that thoroughly documents the East Cost Kinetic Sculpture Race Championship each year.

Groomsman Brett “Jethro” Palmer (Gaithersburg, Maryland)

Tom met Jethro at New Mexico Tech, an aggressively intellectual institute isolated in the Sonoran desert. Their escapades included writing an extensive exposé of the college bookstore for Paydirt (which resulted in significant changes and reduced prices), teaching themselves Modern Physics 254 (to avoid regularly attending class at 8am), fetching a bed-liner that flew out of the back of Tom’s pickup truck along Interstate 25 and across a barbed wire fence, and a peculiar wager involving horchata.

Others

Officiant Reverend Kyle Powderly (Hagerstown, Maryland)

Kyle is Pastor of Hagerstown Presbyterian Church.  Kyle and his wife, Kathy, introduced Johanna to a lively social scene in Baltimore, including long holiday parties playing Uno.  He and Johanna have spent long hours discussing the universe and our place in it.

Head Chef Joshua Engel (Laurel, Maryland)

Tom met Joshua when they were on the Eleanor Roosevelt High School Swim Team. Since then, both have realized that swimming is exceedingly tedious.  Tom and Joshua have bicycled in excess of one thousand miles together.  Tom, Joshua, and Jen Williams were co-founders of Greenbelt Ultimate Frisbee, running like mad every Sunday afternoon. Joshua was co-founder of the Rude Mechanicals theater company. Joshua was also co-founder of Ontology Works, which is actually on the cutting edge of computer science (unlike those who make the same claim in advertisements).  No one knows more than Joshua about feeding large groups of people at Rapidan, for he is the Executive Chef responsible for feeding dozens of hungry volunteers at the camp’s semi-annual Work Weekends.

Chief Bartender Michael Cooney (Greenbelt, Maryland)

Neither Tom nor Michael remember when they met, but it was before either turned 8.  Since retiring from the Coast Guard, Michael is a Paramedic and teaches paramedic students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Once a year, he is also known as Ramp Master of the Water Entry of the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race, safeguarding sometimes-unseaworthy vessels and the crowd witnessing them. (Photo by Andy Carruthers.)

Photographer Andy Carruthers (Greenbelt, Maryland)

Andy is a transplanted New Yorker who moved to Greenbelt in 1999. Andy is the sort of professional photographer who avoids shooting weddings like the plague, and generally reports to more newsworthy events.  He was the Ace of the 2008 KineticBaltimore photography team, and is responsible for the photo of Michael Cooney just above. Andy is also the founder of the Yahoo Greenbelters forum, which has over 600 members.

Master Craftsman Frank Conlan (Baltimore, Maryland)

Frank is master engineer for the Make Believers, one of the longest-running teams in the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race.  Over the years, they have created a giant Alice in Wonderland teapot, a mobile wine press, a train, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, and a fire truck—all amphibious and human powered. (Photo by Andy Carruthers.)

Costumer Hopi Auerbach (Greenbelt, Maryland)

Hopi is another fixture of the Greenbelt social scene.  When not decorating sites and people, Hopi has two professions: providing tours in German of Washington, DC, and pretending to be sick so medical students can pretend to diagnose her. Tom met Hopi in 1999 when she was enlisted by their mutual friend Grey to take care of Tom’s cat when he was in Buenos Aires. (Photo by Karen Wallace.)