We had completed the first cycle of Harvest Home Concerts--one focusing on each of the four themes: Family, Feast, Harvest and Home. In the midst of an internal debate about whether 2011 should be a final  "best of" program or whether we should consider another four-year cycle, one of my singers asked me when the concert was going to be. She was concerned because there was a family wedding the weekend before Thanksgiving and she worried that she and her husband would not be able to sing this year.

As it turned out, the wedding couple had faithfully attended the Harvest Home Concerts since year one, even sending copies of the CD when the groom-to-be was serving overseas. When we last focused on Family, I chose to sing about parent-child relationships but I knew at the time that if we ever did a second concert on Family I would focus on marriage and spousal relationships. This casual conversation confirmed for me that the concerts still had an enthusiastic audience and that 2011's theme would indeed be marriage...