new beginnings
In mid-December, a couple reached out to ask if I had any time to officiate their wedding. While they’d been together and planning to marry for quite some time, they decided that it was time to elope, and they wanted to announce their official marriage to friends on New Year’s Eve. That’s sweet, I thought, but I don’t really do elopements.
I love a good ceremony–whether with a handful of friends or hundreds of kin and admirers, weddings give couples a unique opportunity to communicate what’s important to them and to create their ideal world. And I love a personalized ceremony–not one that just fills in the blanks with a couple’s preferences on a template, but one that is built on reflection on the values that are important to them and that will be a foundation for their marriage, a dialogue that deserves time and space.
When we met, I asked, “What’s the rush?” I still wasn’t sure that I was the right officiant for them. “Why now?” After a pause, one said, “Well, with the new administration coming in…” Oh, I get it. Since November, there’s been some buzz among queer couples that now is the time to marry. I’ve seen officiants advertising specifically to queer couples who are similarly concerned, one even inviting couples to register for a group wedding event to accommodate the large number of worried to-be-weds.
We found an open time a few days later and quickly tailored a ceremony. I made a playlist on Spotify to loop in the background, they identified a couple of readings they wanted to hear before they declared their vows, and we gathered on my roofdeck. The rain mercifully held off so they could enjoy the view of Lake Union, and even Tahoma started to peek out from behind the clouds for a moment as the couple declared their vows and exchanged rings.
I worried that the rush would diminish the sweetness that many couples experience on their wedding days, so I baked them a cake and sent them off with a bottle of bubbly so they could celebrate privately. My worries were unfounded, though, because these to-be-weds emanated the same mix of joy and anxiety that I see in couples who’d planned their festivities over the course of months or even years.
A few things stand out for me from this experience. First, it reinforced for me that any change in our lives deserves space and time to name, to reflect on, and to take the reins on those changes.
Second, the process matters. I’m glad that, even if it was rushed and condensed, I invited this couple into a process of reflection and gave them space to prepare, to celebrate, and to be authentically themselves. I’m glad that I panicked and gave them a cake and champagne to add to their celebration not just because it was great customer service (which, I say with a slight hairflip, it was)--but because it helped me to invest in the change in their lives.
But the biggest stand-out for me is this: it’s the dark season, the darkest time of the year, and cultures and religions around the world do everything they can to bring light back into the world. This couple showed me a different kind of dark season, one that we and many marginalized groups are facing. They found light in the rights and responsibilities afforded with marriage in this country, hoping that marriage would bolster them through whatever changes come, and they shone a light for me on the fragility of hard-won rights and safety.
Marriage, in this light, is political, and this highlights for me the opportunity that comes with a ceremony–the opportunity to create a couple’s ideal world. That world doesn’t have to replicate a royal fantasy or a Pinterest board. Instead, that world can make space for people to be their fullest, whole, and best selves, for building new and strengthening old relationships, for choosing to be part of the change in each other’s life, for putting people and loving relationships at the center, and for building a better, healthier, more just world one relationship at a time.
