gathered here

In my continuing efforts to actually write about my wedding, here's a bit about the ceremony text itself, since a few people expressed interest. K is agnostic and I'd characterize myself as spiritual and attracted to ritual (and Jewish, culturally speaking). I couldn't find a pre-existing ceremony text that expressed the sentiments that I felt were important, so I hunted through every text I could find online and pulled together all the bits and pieces that rang true. I was also after a specific length--long enough that the guests would feel like they had seen something important but short enough to keep people's attention.

In some ways, it was a very traditional ceremony--we had a statement of intent, wedding vows and an exchange of rings. In some ways, though, it was rather unconventional, but not in the usual way of unconventional ceremonies, if you know what I mean. I had a *lot* of people comment afterward on the ceremony, how unusual but how moving it had been. I had one friend say, "I'm used to seeing the first couple of rows getting all teary, but you had people crying all the way to the back row."

I know some of you are interested in this sort of thing, so behind the cut is the complete text of our ceremony.

( A rather nice ceremony, if I do say so myself )