Hey Steve,
Well, my ceremony as a whole is hard to describe, but the talking
part began with a bit about Protestants and Catholics having a
vice-like grip on how marriages usually go, so we're just winging it.
The main bit was this:
-----
Officiant: We are gathered here today…to join in holy matrimony
this person…with that person, and so bound together for eternity as
a…people.
Marriage is not a sacred responsibility or duty anymore, as
it
perhaps once was. But as the sun’s
gone down on an era of
regulated expectations, a brightening dawn of autonomy,
choice, and
desire has graced the dew-spotted flowers of commitment. Two
people have to really want to be together these days. When two
people find each other, as Amanda
and Matt have, the flare of
attachment and affection can happen quickly. Finding a harbor in the
storm of uncertainty,
a shade from the blazing sun of life, a shelter
for the long blizzardy winter
of existence…are there any clichés you’d
like to add Matt?
Matt: No, I’m good
Officiant: When you find someone, to hold tight, to comfort you,
to
help you when you falter, calm you when you are afraid, be happy
when you
are happy, to make you better than you are, to listen to
you about all the
things that no one else is required to care about
and fake that they do…to find
that reciprocating mirror image of
yourself, not the same, but fitted…this is
what marriage is for, a
sign, a token, a demonstration of the unspoken love
that words will
always fail.
Amanda and Matt would now like to say a few words to each
other.
So, if everyone could turn their
seats around and plug their
ears…that would be great…
-----
So then there was those two bits (too weirdly personal for a public
space like this), before ending with Mad Libs vows, which looked like
this: Do you, Matt, take this [noun] to be your lawfully wedded
[noun], to have and to [verb] from this day forward, for better or for
[adjective], for richer or [adjective], in sickness and in [noun],
etc., etc.
It was actually a lot harder to do in the moment than I had thought.
The bit I did for my friend's wedding was this:
-----
I would like to first read Shakespeare’s Sonnet #14 and then I will
say a few words about love.
Sonnet #14
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy –
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find;
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.
“Love at first sight” is an old, worn turn of phrase for the rapidity with
which we sometimes respond emotionally to someone upon first
meeting them. It is, however, not a very good metaphor for
love-in-general. Love is a _feeling_, and feelings are not just
physiological bubblings at the core of our senses—they are social, the
honey in the hive of our interactions with others, the fruit born from
the seeds of first meetings. Love is a harmony and coherence of
selves, not a trait perceived on first confrontation. Love is not just
what holds a relationship together—love _is_ the relationship.
Shakespeare’s sonnets, while being about love, are difficult because
they are also often about death. They are about this single fragile
object, love, that two people are together holding in their hands.
Every time you approach this object in words, it so often escapes
you, and so Shakespeare sacrificed on the altar of expression that
other fragile object—his life, even his poetic life, often saying his
own immense power of expression dies in the face of his love.
What could be more expressive than the poetic sacrifice of that
which we hold most dearly and preciously, and preciously because
dearly and fragily.
One fragile object held by two fragile people. You don’t _luck_ into
love; love doesn’t just _happen_. It might _seem_ like luck,
especially after how I’ve just described it, but _making_ love actually
_happen_ has very little to do with luck. You meet _feel_ lucky, as I
imagine [X] and [Y] do that they have each other, but I don’t say
that “they _found_ each other” because love is something you
_create_: two people choosing each other. Two people choosing
each other every day. Two people waking up every morning and, no
matter how awful they felt the night before or how terrible the
prospect of the day seems, they both know that there is no one else
they’d rather begin or end the day with, no one else they’d rather
suffer through the days ahead with, knowing that the awfulness of
days does not reflect on the other, and in fact is made bearable by
the other, both joint custodians over a fragile, bubble-like object
that—from the _inside_, from the inside of their love—makes _life_
seem a little less fragile. [X] and [Y] might feel lucky to have one
another, but there’s no luck involved in the cement that holds and
is them together.
-----
Actually, this crowd, having witnessed my evolution as a philosopher,
might be better vantaged than most to know where a lot of this
sentiment comes from.
Matt
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