This Couple Filled Their Wedding at The Volland Store in Alma, Kansas, With Lakota Native American Traditions

Past was present at the wedding of Melissa and Dane, held at a historic general store. During the ceremony, they lit a candle at an altar of ancestral photos and exchanged vows on the foundation of an old house. But the most powerful moment came when a friend, a Lakota Sioux elder, blessed the couple and wrapped them in a Morning Star quilt. The year before, she had offered Dane the same blessing after his mother died. “To come full circle and bring Mom into that moment of our ceremony felt really right,” Dane says.

The Morning Star symbol appeared on the welcome sign and ceremony programs. Melissa and her bridesmaids held matching bouquets, but Melissa wrapped hers in a swatch of her mother’s wedding dress and pinned it with her grandmother’s brooch. The Lakota tribe traditionally draped quilts with the Morning Star pattern, a symbol of protection, over the shoulders of people embarking on a journey.  Friends and family wrote well wishes on the back of the handmade quilt. It now hangs in the couple’s home.

Guests dined on a locally sourced menu of kale-and-chickpea-stuffed acorn squash, smoked pork loin with apple-persimmon chutney and Brussels sprouts. Felted figures of the couple’s dogs topped the grain-free cake, which had layers of vanilla with hazelnut cream and chocolate with blackberry filling.