{"id":3326,"date":"2012-07-10T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/?p=3326"},"modified":"2012-07-09T19:58:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T23:58:30","slug":"wuv-twue-wuv-kks-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wuv-twue-wuv-kks-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"Wuv, Twue Wuv (Kid &#038; Kathryn&#8217;s Wedding)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"P1000477 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479426108\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8021\/7479426108_aa6ab64c08.jpg?resize=500%2C375\" alt=\"P1000477\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>File this one under phrases that I never thought someone would be saying to me&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a lovely service.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Confused? Good. Allow me to elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, a friend of mine from high school asked if I knew how he could track down a Justice of the Peace. He and his fiancee were planning to get married at our high school chapel and they needed someone to perform the ceremony for them. &#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s easy,&#8221; I said, &#8220;Anyone in MA can get ordained on the internet and then perform a marriage ceremony. I&#8217;m internet ordained. I could do it for you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>File <em>that<\/em> one under &#8220;Famous Last Words.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A couple of months ago, Kid called me up and asked if I would be willing to perform their wedding ceremony. &#8220;Sure!&#8221; I said, &#8220;are you willing to be married by an enormously pregnant lady?&#8221; Surprisingly enough, they were happy to do so. I guess knowing that two of the guests would be OB-GYNs was all the reassurance that they needed. I was tickled pink that someone trusted me enough to ask me to perform their wedding ceremony. And I&#8217;m a big fan of my friend. So I said yes.<\/p>\n<p>I had two instructions: keep it short, don&#8217;t talk about Jesus. Easy peasy! Oh, by the way, nobody else is speaking. It&#8217;s all you.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, <em>that<\/em> ratcheted up the pressure a bit.<\/p>\n<p>We had a few video calls where we hashed out the details. I worked out a couple of compromises between the bride and groom. And then I sat down, wrote something out, and ran it by several friends to make sure that it would be OK. And then I let myself panic for a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>Panicking? She is in my blood.<\/p>\n<p>The weather had been nasty all week, but the morning of the wedding was full on gorgeous. A good sign, right? I got dressed with some measure of trepidation, but also with a little bit of excitement. My friend was getting married! And I was (literally) going to be right there in the middle of it.<\/p>\n<p>The groom was, how can I put this? <em>Nervous<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"P1000482 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479427932\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7111\/7479427932_4496136f6e.jpg?resize=375%2C500\" alt=\"P1000482\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Which meant that, as officiant, it was my solemn duty to tell a bunch of really stupid jokes in a lame attempt to distract him.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"P1000495 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479434780\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8165\/7479434780_3c7bdf2246.jpg?resize=500%2C375\" alt=\"P1000495\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And I was nothing if not officious.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"P1000493 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479434070\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7128\/7479434070_317bd5cb53.jpg?resize=375%2C500\" alt=\"P1000493\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was aiming for a 10-15 minute ceremony. I think it ended up being closer to five minutes. But it was a <em>lovely<\/em> service. At least that&#8217;s what several nice ladies said to me afterwards. I didn&#8217;t get a laugh at the one funny line that I threw in there. And I got a hearty laugh from most of the audience for a line that I didn&#8217;t think was particularly humorous (Kristian agreed with me afterwards). I am clearly not qualified to evaluate my own qualifications as a solemnizer of wedding vows. But, the important thing is, the couple liked the ceremony. And it was legal. They got the wedding certificate in the mail to prove it.<\/p>\n<p>A fair share of the loveliness can probably be attributed to the setting and not so much my blathering.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"P1000502 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479437788\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8158\/7479437788_3d8f977486.jpg?resize=500%2C375\" alt=\"P1000502\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After photos (including one of alums from our high school, we had <em>better <\/em>make it to the next edition of the alumni magazine), we headed to a local Italian restaurant. I ate my weight in pasta and then had a mini cannoli and some wedding cake. The best man gave a speech that was one part toast, two parts roast. Best. Wedding. Ever.<\/p>\n<p>Kid was a lot happier once the marriage was official.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"P1000534 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479447382\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7250\/7479447382_d41a753b32.jpg?resize=500%2C375\" alt=\"P1000534\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Kathryn looked lovely all day long.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"P1000517 by hopers, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hopers\/7479442032\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8019\/7479442032_55596a71b3.jpg?resize=375%2C500\" alt=\"P1000517\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I really enjoyed the wedding and I loved the challenge of putting together the ceremony. My certificate of ordination will be on file with the state for a year. I think that I need to convince some more people to let me marry them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>File this one under phrases that I never thought someone would be saying to me&#8230; &#8220;It was a lovely service.&#8221; Confused? Good. Allow me to elaborate. Last year, a friend&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-photos","category-random"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yggS-RE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3326"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3336,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3326\/revisions\/3336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}