Nagai Family Minister

Jenny Ruhl









What can we say - Jenny Ruhl is a most remarkable woman. She was in school with our son, Paul, and daughter-in-law, Tori Beyer, back in their Pomona College days in Southern California. When Paul and Tori got engaged they asked Jenny if she would officiate at their wedding. She agreed, and with several remarkable steps met requirements to perform such ceremonies. As simple as that.


The wedding, scheduled for Halloween of 1996, was a masterful and clandestine affair, planned and carried out as a major subterfuge for the benefit of both sets of parents, who were so convinced their offspring would never don the mantle of married adults, that they came to the alleged Halloween party dressed to the nines. Tori's parents came as the American Gothic farm couple, complete with pitchfork and the appropriate spare demeanor.

Yours truly and Barbara came dressed as Count Dracula and the Grim Reaper. You have to see the formal Hallowedding portraits of Tori and her new mother-in-law to believe it - Do be our guests...

Jenny not only was a co-conspirator at the first of the Nagai family ceremonies, but joined in the All Hallows Eve festivities in full-holiday attire, coming as the silken-draped goddess, Pomona. It was a ball...




The second Nagai family ceremony Jenny officiated was the wedding of daughter Diana to Chris Bailey, both graduates of the University of Colorado in Boulder. Because the two had been party to the collusion around the Hallowedding, both had experienced Jenny and had been duly impressed. They asked her to officiate at their wedding as well. And so it was...

While working with Diana and Chris around their wedding ceremony, Jenny said, with tongue in cheek, that with this second ceremony involving a Nagai family member, she must be the Nagai family minister, and we all agreed.
Diana and Chris chose Villa Montalvo in Santa Clara as the setting for their wedding. As this was a more traditional sort of wedding, one that both sets of parents were advised of early on, there were no secretive plans or need for special costumes, unless you consider a tux for the men as such...



There was really no question of who we would ask to officiate at our 40th anniversary celebration. We asked Jenny early in November 2000, and with her agreement the date was set.

Our experience of working with Jenny was out of this world. This is a woman sensitive and mature beyond her years. The qualities in her we responded to in the Hallowedding and the Villa Montalvo wedding marked our ceremony as well, and made our celebration the special event it was.


While we met with Jenny, husband Craig cared for Calder James, feeding him, changing his diaper, and taking him for walks in the brisk sunshine. The cool thing was that we had a chance to hold Calder while we worked piecing together our ceremony - thus the flavor of our ceremony was infused with the sense of family, which suited us fine...