The one you never hoped to meet

So the two of us, as in love as we are? Not romantics in the traditional sense of the word. Remember way back when, we were looking for invitation wording, and half of what we found gave us icky, saccharine, pukey feelings? Yeah... We're not really fairy tale material. When we met each other, finding the person we were going to marry was the last thing on either of our minds. In fact, we might have wrapped this whole thing up a lot sooner had we not fought falling in love as hard as we did for as long as we did.

But some things cannot be helped. And we couldn't help ourselves, and so we finally gave in. But fairy tales still make us roll our eyes.

For us, then, honoring someone controversial and real and hard at our wedding made perfect sense. It's difficult to get less fairy tale than Henry Miller. The irony was too delicious to pass up.

From our ceremony, as read by our rock star officiant Gene... the Henry Miller excerpt that we couldn't resist:

“One can wait a whole lifetime for a moment like this. The woman [or man] whom you never hoped to meet now sits before you, and she talks and looks exactly like the person you dreamed about. But strangest of all is that you never realized before that you had dreamed about her. Your whole past is like a long sleep which would have been forgotten had there been no memory, but remembrance is there in the blood and the blood is like an ocean in which everything is washed away but that which is new and more substantial even than life: REALITY."

- Henry Miller, "Tropic of Capricorn"

Our Vows: Tradition with a Twist

When we first envisioned what kind of ceremony we wanted, we assumed it would be absolutely non-traditional, full of our own spin and humor and reeking of who we are all the way through.

A funny thing happened in the ceremony planning process, though.

As we began to think about what comprises a ceremony, the same lines that we'd once rolled at our eyes at - you know, "to have and to hold," "through sickness and in health," etc. - suddenly seemed to glow with significance. To our absolute shock, we found ourselves suddenly humbled and touched by the notion of repeating lines that millions of couples have repeated before us. So we did just that, but injected our own flavor, too.

Gene: "Maggie and Trevor liked the symbolism of repeating words that so many couples have uttered before them, but they wanted to do so with a twist. Therefore, we’ll hear the traditional marriage vows followed by ones that Maggie and Trevor have written FOR the other person. That’s right: Maggie wrote Trevor’s vows, and Trevor wrote Maggie’s vows."

And so we repeated:

"I, Trevor, choose you Maggie, to be my wife... To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish always."

"Trevor, do you take Maggie to be your wife, and vow to love, honor, and laugh with her as long as you both shall live?”

Trevor: "I do"

And now my turn....

"I, Maggie, choose you Trevor, to be my husband... To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish always."

"Maggie, do you take Trevor to be your husband, and vow to love, honor, and laugh with him as long as you both shall live?”

Maggie: "I do"


"Trevor, Maggie has asked you to make the following vows:

• To love and support her through the highs and lows of coffee addiction
  
  
• To provide her with a never-ending supply of strong National Public Radio reception
  
  
• That there will always be time for beach trips
  
  
• To never let her get bored, just like you promised the night you met
  
  
• To try to see yourself the way that she sees you

"Maggie, Trevor has asked you to make the following vows:

• To love and support him through the highs and lows of sports fan addiction
  
  
• To provide him with a never-ending supply of laughter and smiles
  
  
• That there will always be time for live music
  
  
• To continue to be full of surprises, just like the night you met
  
  
• To try to see yourself the way that he sees you

...and then it was time to exchange rings!

A ceremony fit to print

I *adored* our programs. Just adored them. You remembered our inspiration and the resulting ABCD design? Here's how they looked once they were ribbon-bound and ready to go - letterpressed with cornflower blue and red on the outside, bound with red and white printed cotton ribbon, and printed in navy blue inside:


And as a way to explain our ceremony structure, let's take a peek inside, shall we? Setting the tone right away, Edna St. Vincent Millay:

(click for larger images throughout)


Turning the page, a two-page spread laying out who's who:



Next up, our ceremony structure... We had two types of music during the ceremony: a bagpiper and a violinist. The bagpiper led the guys into the ceremony with the classic "Scotland the Brave." For the girls, we switched to my cousin Zoe on violin, who played The Beatles' "All You Need is Love," and as expected, the song made everyone grin (or so I hear... I was hiding out back!). When it was my turn, I had one parent on each arm and we walked in to U2's "All I Want Is You" on violin, which is just beautiful as an instrumental, and gives me an appropriately cheesy heart-swelling wedding sensation. Sigh.... And after The Kiss, we had "Brown-Haired Maiden" on bagpipes, which was fantastic.


Outside of our readings (which I'll explain next), one element we incorporated that I loved was a twist on the typical Blessing of the Marriage. Our officiant Gene (total rockstar pal... everyone at the wedding had a crush on him, also expected....) asked three groups of people in turn if they would bless our marriage. He asked our parents, our siblings, and then all the guests. Our parents' answers were serious and respectful, but still loud enough for everyone to hear. Our siblings made us laugh, because they are awesome and funny, but also because the chorus of great girls behind me gave loud excited yeses, and my poor brother, who forgot to give his blessing during our rehearsal, was stranded as the only sibling standing behind Trevor. So Trevor shifts right to see the girls say yes, and I burst out laughing and shift to my right to see if my brother will in fact say yes at the real deal, which makes him laugh, and we all have giggle fits. Then Gene asks our crowd of friends and family, "as loudly and wildly as possible," if they also bless our marriage. And the crowd did indeed go wild.


Ahh... readings. You all know my thing with words. We decided to isolate our readings on a two-page spread rather than within the ceremony in order to simplify the layout. First, Trevor's mother read "Beyond What," by Alice Walker. She killed it.

Our next reading was our big surprise to most of the guests, one that we'd been super-excited about for months. We chose twelve of our oldest friends - the friends who weren't in our wedding party because it was so small, but have been with us through thick and thin, to share in a group reading. The reading was "Love," by Roy Croft, and the effect was like a scattered chorus throughout the ceremony. Each friend had an assigned stanza, and simply stood where they were seated to read. So we had a crowd in front of us, with various loved ones popping up to read a line or two, and then someone else across the way popping up for more, and then someone else, etc. The result, for me, was magical. I loved having that moment for myself in the middle of the ceremony to see my friends - to watch them read, to see who they were seated with, to see everyone's grins, to really hear them. I've heard that it's rare to see anyone at your own ceremony - you're typically zeroed in on your partner, and that's that. So having all our fantastic friends share that moment made me feel incredibly lucky to have them in my life, and especially to have them with me that day. Twelve friends sharing one poem - pure magic.


The final page was a note from us thanking our families and honoring loved one who have passed away, but it also included something unique to us. Given that we gave everyone Welcome Bags and had a big wedding weekend versus a single event, we decided early on that we wouldn't have official "favors," and instead would give a donation to an organization that meant something to us both. In the end, we decided on two organizations. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is an organization close to the heart of Trevor's family, so it was a no-brainer. But as a way to honor the struggles for marriage equality going on for gays and lesbians and to respect their fight to be allowed to do what was so easy for us, we also wanted to make a more pointed, political donation to their cause. Here's the wording we came up with: "We've also made a contribution to Freedom to Marry, because if we can get married - and to each other, no less - then everyone else should be allowed to as well." Enough said.



One surprisingly (for us) modest kiss later, and that was all she wrote :-).

Screeching and crashing

SO MUCH to do today -- eeeeeeek!!!!!! But since it can't be all wedding work all the time, we have TV On The Radio tickets tonight. And on that note, some yummy words for Sunday:

I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance

And I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast

And I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance

- TV on the Radio, from 'Ambulance'

An accomplished flirt

In the search for ceremony and program quotes, we've come across several we love but that aren't right for this purpose. Here's one of them:

There would have been the making of an accomplished flirt in me, because my lucidity shows me each move of the game - but that, in the same instant, a reaction of contempt makes me sweep all the counters off the board and cry out: - "Take them all - I don't want to win - I want to lose everything to you!"

- Edith Wharton to W. Morton Fullerton, June 8, 1908

The program-opener

“I declare
that I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests wins the war;
I shall love you always.”
- Edna St. Vincent Millay, from ‘Modern Declaration’

Cue the clergymen!

In the search for ceremony readings and program quotes, we've come across several we love but just aren't right for us. Here's one of them:

I'd be crazy to propose to her, but when I see that profile of hers, I feel the only thing worth doing in the world is to grab her and start shouting for clergymen and bridesmaids to come running.

- P.G. Wodehouse

Why we love our officiant

We're ordaining our friend Gene to marry us. We actually laughed about how great it would be have Gene as emcee before we were even engaged. He's The One for many reasons - he's an actor (presence!), a writer (great with words!), and a talk show host (knows how to manipulate a crowd!). But more than all of that, Gene just gets us. He was one of the first people to whom I admitted my burgeoning feelings toward Random Preppy Pink-Shirted Guy. And when random guy became regular guy became boyfriend stuck in the Never-ending Election Recount from Hell, Gene was the one who listened to me whine (I know, I know, why was I whining?!), and then bought me beers at our favorite spot and took me to the movies to get my mind off things. When I introduced Gene and Trevor at a backyard dinner party my best ABQ gals and I hosted, it was like they'd known each other forever. Couldn't have been more seamless. Plus, Gene might have used the phrase "epitomizing youthful love of today" about us once or twice. ;-)

Importantly to us, Gene is also freakin' hilarious. I can't wait to see what our crowd thinks of him. Today while Gene and I were chatting about some ceremony stuff, he summed up in one brief exchange why we've asked him to do this for us:

Gene: Oh my Gawwwwwwwd! The invitations!!!

Me: So fun, huh?

Gene: I swear to you, I couldn't even open the thing. I was just in awe of it and knew that what was inside was going to break my ass it'd be so powerful, so I just kind of carried it around with me unopened for a week.

Maggie: Wait, seriously? You couldn't open it?

Gene: No! It was going to break my ass! I couldn't do it! Had to just sit with it a while.

Maggie: You are hilarious. Should this story make it into your ceremony intro somehow?

Gene: Ha ha... noted.

Maggie: Only if you repeat the phrase "break my ass," of course.

A council between equals

One of our ceremony readings. The ceremony that we finished writing the first draft of last night. :-)


“Beyond What"
Alice Walker

We reach for destinies beyond
what we have come to know
and in the romantic hush
of promises
perceive each
the other's life
as known mystery.
Shared. But inviolate.
No melting. No squeezing
into One.
We swing our eyes around
as well as side to side
to see the world.

To choose, renounce,
this, or that--
call it a council between equals
call it love.

Six-Word love

I was going to do a great post this morning on a book that everyone should go and buy: Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: by Writers Famous and Obscure. I was going to ditch the usual favorite excerpts and reel you in by including some of the six-word sentiments that spoke most to me. Then I was going to complete the sale by noting that my dear friend Saleem is one of the "writers famous and obscure" quoted in the book, and that his six words are funny and true and very much who he is.

But then I woke up to a howling storm, with the temperature 40 degrees below where it was when I fell asleep, my work scattered all over the place, etc. In my rush to leave, I left the book at home.

So...

This is a book you should own. You'll laugh and smile and wince. If you're like the F-Word and me, you'll go about your errands amusing yourselves by speaking only in six-word sentiments. Then you'll wonder why you didn't come up with the idea for this book first. And how much more fulfilling things could be if you ran a little publishing company out of your apartment and got to be surrounded by yummy words all day long. Hmmm...

This is an example of a project that takes on a life of its own: the blog for this book is a growing repository of other folks' six-word memoirs. Go read. Go write! Go contribute.

See ya over there?

Hard words make me swoon

Poring over potential wedding ceremony readings is one of my biggest indulgences. I'm seeking out pieces that feel like us - smart and bursting and full of humor and honesty, but not at all fairy tale-ish. The most striking selections to me are usually either the silliest or the most difficult. Many of the more challenging ones aren't going to be finalists for our ceremony; I want to make room for laughter there, and being surrounded by grins is important to me. The difficult ones, then, that probably won't make the cut? I keep running across poems in others' recommendations that at one time or another have been tacked onto my walls, flagged in my books, and been carried around with me in the various cities and rooms and days that I've called home over the years. I love those full-circle experiences. Here's one example:

To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

Words (and remaining ME)

Last night I had a huge girl moment courtesy of IndieBride Kvetch's vows forum page, specifically their "giant ceremony readings repository." I was completely teary reading some of the most beautiful words about love and marriage. It struck me: getting all our logistical/attire things out of the way early means that I'll have months and months to think about words and the meaning of what we're doing, and I love that idea.

The IndieBride forum, by the way, ROCKS. I love the community there talking about weddings from the perspective of intelligent, progressive, feminist, aware, independent women. It's the opposite of how I feel logging onto The Knot message boards from time to time, looking for vendor-related stuff or just peeking in. I feel like a complete outcast among those girls, although admittedly, an outcast by design. The attitude so prevalent in the wedding industry is that life begins and ends with that walk down the aisle, and I couldn't feel more opposed to that concept. I know that so many of us are opposed to that concept, but the industry built to feed us that line is insanely dominant. Staying real and true to ourselves becomes a conscious decision when tradition dictates that some lame DJ will announce us as Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName, as if our identity was erased the minute we said "I do."

Some of the forums active on IndieBride right now are topics that are incredibly relevant to me: "Marriage and Feminism," "The Bouquet Toss... And Other Antiquated Traditions," "Changing Your Name," and "Ridiculous Bridal Ads and Articles." The threads and discussion in each is fantastic. All of these concepts are things I'm going to break down here over the next few months, as I find that perfect balance of frill and depth about this whole getting married thing. Actually, I think a balance of frill and depth pretty much sums up exactly who I am. ;-)

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Rumi excerpts, which gets me every time.

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

-Rumi