The Wedding Adventures: The Vows

This past weekend we met with our wedding officiant. She's lovely and it was very reassuring to know that first we won't be married by a stranger, and second that we'll be married by someone wonderfully sweet.

The greater challenge this past week was putting our ceremony vows together. For us, the wedding ceremony will be the most meaningful part of the wedding day and we wanted them to really reflect the two of us. I always envisioned our vows being deeply personal and intimate, so much so that I shied away from having a larger wedding for this reason. We chose to write our entire ceremony and we'll also be writing our vows to each other. We didn't write the ceremony from scratch of course. Instead we cobbled it together from various readings, poems and ceremony examples that I've been collecting over the last year whenever I came across something I liked. Since it was quite a bit of work to assemble the ceremony, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite readings for couples who are also writing their own ceremony. Some great resources I came across are over at A Practical Wedding and Offbeat Bride.

ps. the photo above is one of our finds from a street market in Seattle. We're going to use it to hold our rings.

From The Little Prince

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ." 

 

From Still Life with Woodpecker 
by Tom Robbins

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

 

To Have Without Holding

by 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.

 I like you 

By Sandol Stoddard Warburg

I like you
And I know why.
I like you because
You are a good person to like.

I like you because...
When I tell you something special
You know its special
And you remember it
A long, long time.

You say:
"Remember when you told me
Something special?"
And both of us remember.
When I think something is important,
You think its important too.

We have good ideas.
When I say something funny, you laugh.
I think I’m funny.
You think I’m funny too.

I like you because...
You know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there
Except just a tiny bit.
Sometimes.
Stop!

But if you do, then I know where
To tickle you too.
You know how to be silly.
That’s why I like you.
Boy! Are you ever silly!
I never met anyone sillier than me
Till I met you.

I like you because...
You know when its time to stop
Being silly.

Maybe day after tomorrow.
Maybe never.
Oops! Too late!
Its quarter past silly.

We fool around the same way all the time.
Sometimes we don’t say a word.
We snurkle under fences,
We spy secret places.
If I’m a goofus on the roofus,
You are one too.

And I like you because when I am feeling sad, you don’t always cheer me up right away. Sometimes it is better to be sad.
You can’t stand others being
So googly and goggly
Every single moment.
You want to know about things...
It takes time.

I like you because...
If I am mad at you
Then you get mad at me too.
Its awful when the other person isn’t.
Phooey!
They are just so nice and so hoo, hoo,
You could just punch them in the nose.

I like you because...
When I think I’m going to throw up
You don’t pretend you’re busy
Looking at the birds and all that.
You say: "Maybe it was Something you ate".
You say: "That happened to me one time".
And the same thing did.

If you find two four-leaf clovers,
You give me one.
If I find four, I give you two.
If we find only three, we keep looking.
Sometimes we have good luck,
And sometimes we don’t.

If I break my arm and if you break your arm too,
Then it’s lots of fun to have a broken arm.
You tell me about mine
And I tell you about yours.
We both are sorry.
We write names and draw pictures.
We show everybody
And they wish
They had broken arms too.

I like you because....
- I don’t know why -
But -
Everything that happens is nicer with you.
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you.
It must have been lonesome then.

I like you because - because - because -
It’s the fourth of July
On the fifth of July.
And if you and I had some drums
And some horns and horses
And some fire engines,
we could be a holiday
we could be a celebration
We could be a whole parade.
See what I mean?

Even if it was the nine hundred and ninety ninth of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place in particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That’s how it would happen every time.
I don’t know why.

I guess I don’t know why I really like you.
Why do I like you???
I guess I like you...
I guess I really like you
BECAUSE I LIKE YOU.