The gossamer aura of Santa Ynez at dusk, site of a rockin’ reception. (photo by Emily Sener)

SANTA YNEZ  –  Up here, the long twilight flutters like a flute.

The air is perfect  –  not too cold, not too toasty  –  the point right before the goosebumps start to pop up on the pretty moms’ arms.

Perfect like this wedding. Perfect like these brassy cowboy hills.

A good wedding is full of movie moments and vernal sentiment. We’re having another grand one up here in the Santa Ynez Valley, located I’m not sure where. East of Eden? West of Santa Barbara?  Can you smell the ocean? Or is that Bittner’s margarita?

FYI, the Santa Ynez Valley is a little pocket of pleasure in Santa Barbara’s clippety-clop backyard. It’s exactly what Ireland would look like if the Scandinavians took it over.

So much to do up here. You could tip a cow. You could wrestle a windmill. This is where they filmed that movie “Sideways,” which has a funny gossamer aura to it. I swear they shot that movie through teardrops and butterfly wings.

This is also where Ronnie Reagan worked Rancho del Cielo. Actress Bo Derek still makes the rounds up here, out to buy bread. Olivia Newton-John had a horse ranch, now for sale. Michael Jackson lived up this way too.

The buzz is that Joe Biden is looking to purchase a place, probably at the end of a long dusty road.

On the day of the wedding, we stumble into the Maverick, a local honky-tonk: “Warm Beer. Lousy Food. Bad Service. Welcome!”

Dollar bills line the ceiling, so we personalize one to Abby and Geoff, who will be married in a few hours. It’s a small wager, yet a sturdy one. “Abby and Geoff forever.” I bet a buck on it. Hell, I’d bet a billion bucks.

As you know, my heart is made of whale bone and gum. Still, I possess a mild romantic streak. I love weddings, in the way I love grilled meat and Cubbie comebacks.

Let me paint the scene: There’s a barn  –  a perfect barn, about to fall down. If you’re having a country wedding like this, it’s best to have an old barn in the background.

The guests? Maybe 150, in taffeta and wedding hair …  big hair, fussed with and polyurethaned. And a couple of young dudes in seersucker suits, can of beer in their pockets.

This wine region has a definite lilt. The world has never been the same since one thirsty madman added yeast to grapes, thereby creating – in a single glass  –  love, seduction, discovery, yearning, heartache, hunger, poetry, wonderment, servitude and surprise.

The stuff of a good marriage, actually.

I like weddings … the fuss, the traditions. I like appetizer platters and buffet lines. I like the banter while  waiting at the men’s room.

I like cigars in the corner, away from the judgy people who don’t appreciate the fine stink of Cuba burning.

I like wedding cake.

You don’t run across much wedding cake anymore. It has gone the way of slow dances and bouquet tosses. Someone decided those traditions were too tacky – too something  –  so now almost no one does cakes and bouquet tosses or that retro thing with the garter belt, which seemed kind of fun.

Hey, what do I know about fun? I live in the suburbs.

Largely, I think weddings have evolved, gotten better in the past 20 years. Some are still too large, too ornate, too stuffy, too frilly.

Most, like this one, are just right.

Good trend: Someone of significance performs the ceremony. In this case, the groom’s dad, Steve, who knocks it outta the park in his first-ever at bat.

Not everybody can do that. Not everyone can stand up in front of 150 strangers, all pulling at their itchy collars and thumbing their phones and still deliver a memorable soliloquy about love everlasting. Steve can. In fact, he might’ve found a calling.

Bottom line: You measure a wedding in smiles, not dollar signs. Is everybody having a rockin’ good time? Does the band have a horn section? Did Miller remember the cigars?

In this case … oh man.

Rarely do you see a bride and groom this happy.

Rarely do you hear speeches this memorable: Brian, Jim, Spencer, Taylor and Amanda, who brought down the house with a maid-of-honor speech for the ages (talk about finding your calling).

All I know is that, in the sippy grandeur of Santa Ynez, Geoff the nonprofit fund-raiser married Abby the wedding planner, the woman who has made so many dreams come true for other brides.

And now she has one of her own. A memory. A good man. A glowing future, in the fluttering twilight of the perfect California day.

Wow, does she ever.

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