Both an up- and downside of having a friend officiate your ceremony is getting to/having to write your own ceremony. I was kind of excited about it early on and bought a book to help me get started. Then I became paralyzed by the enormity of the task.
What finally got me going was to start choosing other people's words and building the ceremony around them. I chose a prayer from the Wedding Ceremony Planner book and made some slight modifications to it. I settled on two poems to use as readings and then Raj found a third. These made up by far the longest part of our ceremony and set the tone for the rest of it. I thought they were really representative of us, our views on love, and the kind of marriage we wanted. Namely that while falling in love may be a romantic feeling, real lasting love is a decision and one we make over and over. And that our chosen lifestyle is one of being partners in adventure and traveling companions. I did not intend for them to represent a seminar in American Literature. Apparently New Englanders speak to us.
The Ivy Crown, by William Carlos Williams
The whole process is a lie,
unless,
crowned by excess,
It break forcefully,
one way or another,
from its confinement—
or find a deeper well.
Antony and Cleopatra
were right;
they have shown
the way. I love you
or I do not live
at all.
Daffodil time
is past. This is
summer, summer!
the heart says,
and not even the full of it.
No doubts
are permitted—
though they will come
and may
before our time
overwhelm us.
We are only mortal
but being mortal
can defy our fate.
We may
by an outside chance
even win! We do not
look to see
jonquils and violets
come again
but there are,
still,
the roses!
Romance has no part in it.
The business of love is
cruelty which,
by our wills,
we transform
to live together.
It has its seasons,
for and against,
whatever the heart
fumbles in the dark
to assert
toward the end of May.
Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
Keep
the briars out,
they say.
You cannot live
and keep free of
briars.
Children pick flowers.
Let them.
Though having them
in hand
they have no further use for them
but leave them crumpled
at the curb's edge.
At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse—
at least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our finger tips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.
The Master Speed, by Robert Frost
No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still-
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar
from Song of the Open Road, by Walt Whitman
Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores,
however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters,
we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us
we are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Allons! the inducements shall be greater,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
If you look at the text of Song of the Open Road, you will find that it is much, much longer. I found a selection from it in the comments of a post about ceremony readings on Offbeat Bride and really liked it. But when I looked at the full poem, I realized that wording had been changed in parts from the original. So I made my own chopped up version of it by picking and choosing lines, but without changing the words. While it may have opened us up to a visit from Zombie Walt Whitman, it felt worth it in the end.
In looking for readings, I also found Union by Robert Fulghum, which we used as the lead in to our vows:
You have known each
other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At
some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes to this moment of
yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way.
All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during
long walks – all those sentences that began with "When we're married"
and continued with "I will and you will and we will" – those late
night talks that included "someday and somehow and maybe"- and all
those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.
All these common
things, and more, are the real process of a wedding. The symbolic vows that you
are about to make are a way of saying to one another, "You know all those
things we've promised and hoped and dreamed- well, I meant it all, every word."
Look at one another
and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things
to one another- acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, and even teacher, for
you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall
say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never
quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the
world, this is my husband, this is my wife.
It was when I came to writing the Charge to the Couple that I got really stuck. How do you write a charge to yourself? What I ended up doing was starting with this selection from Madeliene L'Engle's The Irrational Season and then writing a short paragraph to go after it, charging us to do what Madeline said.
Ultimately there comes a moment when a decision
must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how
much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are
willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of
love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so
that, together we become a new creature. To marry is the biggest risk in human
relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life,
this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands
the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which
is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It
takes a lifetime to learn another person.
Really, aside from that paragraph, all I wrote was the welcome and our vows. In the end, I decided to do a combined approach to traditional and original vows where we'd say "I do" to the traditional vows read by our officiant and then recite original vows during the ring exchange. They are not artfully worded, but it was the best I could do to capture what I thought was the essence of what we were committing to:
I choose you today to be my lifelong partner and I promise, no matter
where life takes us or what difficulties we face, to choose you every day. I promise to encourage, inspire,
support and care for you. I promise to put our team first and that home will always
be wherever we’re together. I will be there to laugh with you, lift you up, and
walk by your side, hand in hand through the adventures we seek out and the
challenges presented to us. As long as I live, I will love you. This is my
solemn vow.
That's pretty much the whole thing. I worried a little when it was so cold that people might be unhappy with my decision to include three poems, but really the whole thing was over in probably ten minutes or less. The writer in me would have loved to be able to write a meaningful and moving ceremony from scratch. But I have always been a reader as well and in the end, was happy to be able to compile a collection of writings that said what we wanted our ceremony to convey.
I'm pretty sure this brings us to the end of Blush and Bashful (posts regarding the wedding). Just about in time for Adventures in Asia posts to begin.