01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 1, 2004

Lynda Chellel and Jonathan Ryder

Seekonk Congregational Church, Seekonk

6.27.04

Jonathan Ryder's interest in historical reenactment dates back to when he was living in Indiana, working at the George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, the site of an important Revolutionary War battle. Years later, back in Rhode Island, he saw the Pawtuxet Rangers militiamen at an event, asked if they were recruiting, "and now I'm walking around in a red coat, marching in parades."

He asked Lynda Chellel for her hand in marriage at Smith's Castle in Wickford, during a reenactment encampment, a time when the reenactors dress and live as soldiers would have during that period.

"Jonathan is the history buff," says Lynda. "I just enjoy the social aspect of it all, the camping out, meeting new people."

They had met only nine months earlier, in February 2003, while painting a labyrinth on the floor of their church hall, the church where they are getting married today. "I had volunteered to help paint, Jonathan was helping plan some church celebration and his meeting was delayed. So he started painting too."

Lynda, 34, is a program manager with the Kent Center. A licensed mental health counselor, she treats people with severe chronic mental illness. She was born in Providence, and grew up in Warren.

Jonathan, 32, born and raised in Providence, is working on his third Master's degree, studying library and information science at URI. (He holds a Master's in divinity from Yale and a masters in storytelling from East Tennessee State University.) He's worked as a security guard, a residential counselor, a member of the clergy, and, for the past three years, as a substitute teacher.

Today, at Seekonk Congregational Church, the Pawtuxet Rangers serve as ushers at Jonathan and Lynda's 18th-century-style wedding. The couple has made the clothes they are wearing, from "reenactor-approved patterns." Their small wedding party sports period costumes. Invitations read: "18th century attire appreciated but not required."

"Our vows are loosely based on the language of the period," says Jonathan. And in keeping with custom of the time, the reception is simple, held in the church hall where they met. "They didn't have the elaborate receptions we typically have now," says Jonathan.

Larry Loverde, manager of a 99 restaurant and member of Seekonk Congregational, has catered the event. "We were handed a pile of cookbooks from colonial times. Most contain no numbers: 'Peel some apples, add some butter.' "

Loverde announces the menu to the guests: carved roast turkey, and roast beef, gashed, stuffed with garlic and onions. "The recipe originally called for wrapping the beef in suet, but that would have been a bit much, so we wrapped it in bacon." He describes five authentic period sauces: "horseradish sauce, sauce for a goofe, poor man's sauce, minced sauce, and sauce for wilde fowl." And as side dishes, roasted sweet potatoes, creamed celery with pecans, and succotash.

Then the Pawtuxet Rangers circle Jonathan and Lynda's table, serenading the wedding couple with an 18th-century ditty.