OH HI IT’S ME AGAIN, with wedding details that only matter to myself and family and perhaps a stalker here or there. Today: the ceremony, which was held outside under a pecan tree because Pie.
We decided to get married by a lovely Reverend who came recommended to us by the venue. We started out way back in January, when the Reverend sent us a whole bunch of sample ceremonies. Being that we are both mildly allergic to cliche, we ended up making a lot of it our own, writing out our own version of formal parts. It should go on record, though, that we didn’t realize until a few days before that we FORGOT TO PUT THE PART WHERE WE SAY I DO.
My favorite section was definitely the welcome:
Good evening! How serendipitous that you all happen to be here, right here, right now, because it just so happens that all of the sudden, in a completely unplanned fashion, Bekah and James have decided to get married. Right here. Right now. We are gathered here today to bear witness as they join their lives together. They are honored and delighted that you are randomly here today.
Thankfully the Reverend was totally game and in fact riffed off our jokes like a subtle and reverent Rodney Dangerfield. My second favorite part was this:
Reverend: Bekah, repeat after me, with this ring, I thee wed…
I just stand there, staring off into space.
Reverend:….Bekah? Repeat after me?
Me: OH! Sorry. I forgot what was happening for a second.
What had really happened was, we had accidentally skipped the part in which we say our vows, which we had both worked quite hard on, and I was trying to figure out how to elegantly bring that up. I then elegantly segued with ‘WE WANT TO SAY THE VOWS WE WROTE, NOW.’ And so, we did. I would put them here but I think some things belong between two hearts and hard drives, but I will say that we both, independent of each other, vowed a lot of food related things.
Blaine and Carrie then read some excerpts from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Why, here we are, staring at them as they do:
My favorite part:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
I love this quote. Within a marriage, life can stay active, still searching, still wondering, just with a new layer of warmth beneath the asking. Marriage is not just answers, marriage is questions. And according to our ceremony, marriage is also JOKES AND FOOD. COUNT US IN, MAN!