We did it! The whole day was an absolute success, a more in-depth post is required but we should wait for a few pictures first. We can’t say THANK YOU enough to everyone involved, you are the reason it went so smoothly, how lucky are we to have you in our lives!?
We’ve had several requests for copies of our ceremony/vows since it was a little hard for the people in back to hear (we had to move the wedding inside due to rain but to the most amazing spot in the museum), so here is our ceremony, in it’s entirety..a little something to tide you over until the photos come back.
Wedding procession: ‘Red Right Ankle’ by the Decemberists, played acoustically by Darren Jackson.
Officant (Seth): Greetings ladies and gentlemen, family, friends, loved ones, as well as the rest of you gorgeous gorgeous creatures, and welcome to the celebration of the partnership and union between Ms. Caitlin Schaller and Mr. William Johnston.
Caitlin and Will have chosen to proclaim outcome of this ceremony as a union rather than a marriage out of love, support and respect for friends, family and complete strangers who do not legally have equal rights to partake in this intimate bond.
About a year ago, when Will and Caitlin asked me to be their officiant, I was simultaneously humbled, honored, and slightly terrified…not by the looming possibility of screwing up the most passionate and spectacular day of their lives, not by speaking in front of a large crowd of incredibly well-dressed and possibly wild strangers, but by the near impossible task of capturing, in simple language, the magic that these two fully, passionately, and creatively share.
Wedding ceremonies frequently rely upon expected conventions such as Shakespearean sonnets, exhausted scriptures, and semi-entertaining inside jokes, none of which will suffice, because Will and Caitlin are simply not conventional people.
Their connection is one that has been happily wrought with unconventional adventures spanning celebrating their 8th anniversary touring Belfast with a former IRA member as their guide, fixed gear bicycle crashes, The Wu-Tang Clan (holla), vegetarian taco nights, talon-wielding birds-of-prey, and on and on and on.
Adventures such these are responsible for the supernatural love that these two progressive, pit-bull-rescuing, kitty-cat-loving, beat-making, earth-shaking people share….(ooh, I love you guys!) Caitlin and Will have very clearly magnetized me as a result of this pristine connection.
Caitlin and Will, yours is a relationship that is literally unlike any other; yours is a connection to living passionately and choosing to bear the weight of human strife and the struggle of the common proletariat. I am reminded of a passage from an existential film called Waking Life in which a character addresses just such connections by stating:
“All I can think about is how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. This is the time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, as we are an integral part of that. It is a gift. Life is raging all around us and every moment is magical.” Mmm…magical, indeed.
Caitlin and Will, yours is clearly a relationship to be envied, modeled, adored, and celebrated for decades to come, yours is an existence perhaps most keenly captured in a poem by Linda Gregg entitled The Precision.
The Precision
There is a modesty in nature. In the small
of it and in the strongest. The leaf moves
just the amount the breeze indicates
and nothing more. In the power of lust, too,
there can be a quiet and clarity, a fusion
of exact moments. There is a silence of it
inside the thundering. And when the body swoons,
it is because the heart knows its truth.
There is directness and equipoise in the fervor,
just as the greatest turmoil has precision.
Like the discretion a tornado has when it tears
down building after building, house by house.
It is enough, Kafka said, that the arrow fit
exactly into the wound it makes. I think
about my body in love as I look down on these
lavish apple trees and the workers moving
with skill from one to the next, singing our bodies on fire.
Look at you two: extravagantly and brilliantly on fire. Ladies and gentlemen, Will and Caitlin have composed their own vows and will share them now.
Will: I promise….
Caitlin: I promise…
Will: To remember all the times you pushed me to succeed even though I was being too stubborn.
Caitlin: To continue to push you.
Will: To continue letting you snooze when you pretend to not feel good, hoping to sleep in.
Caitlin: To continue our late night dance parties to awful 90’s music.
Will: To keep you on your toes
Caitlin: To keep you grounded
Will: To protect you
Caitlin: To try and see things from your perspective.
Will: To support you in all your pursuits
Caitlin: To support you in all your pursuits
Will: To never forget how excited I am to call you my wife
Caitlin: To let my guard down.
Will: To love you when you’re hot, tired, or hungry, all of which result in crankiness.
Caitlin: To always find common ground and to listen.
Will: To continue watching movies of questionable quality as an excuse to be near you.
Caitlin: To always be true to you while being true to myself.
Will: To be loyal to you.
Caitlin: To never use your faults against you.
Will: To admit when I’m wrong or make a mistake.
Caitlin: To remember that you are on my team and any criticism or suggestions come from a place of love and support.
Will: To never go to bed angry.
Caitlin: To cherish our secrets.
Will: To continually reassure you that I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.
Caitlin: To never forget the promise of the 14 year old boy who told me he’d love me forever on the day he asked me to be his girlfriend over nine years ago…and how we always knew we’d end up here.
Will: And if you break any of these promises, I promise to forgive you and move on with our lives together.
Caitlin: And if you break any of these promises, I promise to forgive you and move on with our lives together.
Seth: Will, do you take Caitlin to be your lawfully wedding wife, (slip ring on finger) Caitlin do you take Will to be your lawfully wedding husband (slip ring on finger)? By the power vested in me by the state of Minnesota, the beautiful witnesses in this building, and every naturally high molecule in my body, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, for the first time ever Mr. William Lawrence Johnston and Mrs. Caitlin Gallagher Johnston.
There was also a reading done by our friend Tony, but I don’t remember where it was in the ceremony, haha.
Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99 percent of all the creatures that have ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into that group! …
Not a single one of your ancestors, all the way back to the bacteria, succumbed to predation before reproducing, or lost out in the competition for a mate.
Those who accept their fates as humans, who embrace the beautiful nothingness of death, who celebrate the life cycle we share with all living things, those truly are the lucky ones. They live and love boldly, passionately and without fear, for there is nothing to fear once it is realized that the short time we have on this earth is all we have. We are all we have. Nothing is more spectacular and brilliant than when two people meet and consciously choose to share their one life together. They are completely aware of the inevitable fate of our kind and the heartache that will one day take place yet open their hearts fully and invest themselves completely for they have found something worth sacrificing. It is this bold and foolish gesture of humanity that we must always honor and celebrate for it is the reason we are all still breathing. So rise up, seize the day, thirst for knowledge, love recklessly and above all else;
In the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
It was wonderful, sorry for those who couldn’t hear it!
-c + w J
