a ceremony, a celebration, a thing or two to remember

Happiness in marriage is forming a circle of love that draws together the whole family. It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow and pursue the common search for the good and the beautiful. It is not looking for perfection in each other. It is not only marrying the right partner, it is BEING the right partner.

(short pause)

And now William would like to read a poem by ee cummings

(Will reads poem)


somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near



your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose



or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;



nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing



(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands



Thanks Will!

And now, let us get down to business.

(short pause)

VOWS

(to couple) Please face each other.

In the presence of your family and friends:

Will you, Dana, take Ski to be your friend, your lover, your wife? Do you promise conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions? Will you love her and comfort her, and cherish all that she is and will be, from this day forward?

(I DO)

Will you, Ski, take Dana to be your friend, your lover, your husband? Do you promise conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions? Will you love him and comfort him, and cherish all that he is and will be, from this day forward?

(I DO)

RING EXCHANGE

(Will coughs up the rings)

(to Dana) Please repeat after me:

With this ring I embrace the bond of love that has brought us to this day and will forever hold our hearts together in constant and mysterious grace. With this ring I thee wed.

(to Ski) Please repeat after me:

With this ring I embrace the bond of love that has brought us to this day and will forever hold our hearts together in constant and mysterious grace. With this ring I thee wed.



By the power vested in me by the State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife, friends and lovers- Mr. & Ms. Fantastic!

(Kissy face: Greg presses play on boombox for recessional music: recessional)