September 3rd, 2000
Good afternoon and welcome! Welcome, on this fine afternoon, to this beautiful place. We are at the Gerrard family cabin, on peaceful Vashon Island, in metropolitan King County, State of Washington, United States of America, planet Earth. We, friends and family, have gathered together to witn ess, to consecrate, and to celebrate, the wedding of Suzanne Elizabeth Burdick and Ian Clark Gerrard. If those names come as a surprise, and you intended to attend either the Scarmastra, Perla, Pearson, or Ricki weddings, also on this island today, there is still time to leave and go to that event. You are welcome to stay, since this will be an excellent wedding, full of ceremony, emotion, and, especially, humor.
Ian and Suzanne have lit the chalice from the palace and the flagon with the dragon. These flames are a remembrance of those who have come before and those who can only be here with us in spirit. These vessels also evoke the high priests of comedy. Let us now praise funny men and women. Danny Kaye, Lily Tomlin, Spike Jones, Monty Python, and Madeline Kahn.
A reading from Comedians 4, verse 13:
In the beginning was the word, and the word was HA!,
But there was no joke.
In those days the world was devoid of laughter,
and the Lord saw that it was sort of a bummer.
And God said HA! and created the platypus,
For God had a strange sense of humor.
The Lord took the platypus to man and said unto him:
"Behold, I give you the duck-billed platypus.
Laugh and be merry."
And man said "Uh, sure…"
But as God turned to go, the platypus ran between his legs and god tripped,
taking out a coffee table and two chairs as he fell.
And man laughed.
So it was that god created the pratfall, and it was good.
If any one knows a reason why this couple should not be joined in marriage, let them NOT speak now. Suzanne and Ian have known each other for 10 years, and have been in a relationship for five of those years. There has been ample opportunity to say something before now, so let us continue, and enjoy the ceremony.
What is love? To Plato it is nothing more than the wish for the most intimate association with the object of one’s affection.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery says: "Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction."
Tom Robbins says this about "How to Makes Love Stay":
Erhard:
Leah: 1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
Jill: 2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the bur ning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
Eric: 3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep.
Love will be there in the morning…
Deb: When the mystery of the connection goes, love goes. It’s that simple. …The romance of new love, the romance of solitude, the romance of objecthood, the romance of anicent pyramids and distant stars are means of making contact with the mystery . When it comes to perpetuating it, however, I got no advice.
Erhard: But I can and will remind you of two of the most important facts I know:
1, Everything is part of it, and 2,
All: It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
And now, Julie Gerrard will read "The Good-morrow" by John Donne:
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov’d? we re we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?
T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir’d, and got, t’was but a dreame of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking soules,
Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And makes one little roome, an every where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.
The Prussian writer Theodor von Hippel, in his 18th Century book On Marriage states: "marriage stands under the protection of the law and is an exclusive and lifelong union whereby certain rights and responsibilities are introduced into the relationship between the two partners. The purpose of marriage is mutual support, and the closest possible intertwining of two lives. Obedience to the law, respect for one another — marriage is a contract based on mutual consent."
Vows
Zanne: I believe that magic exists in this world.
I believe that life is beautiful.
I believe that we are here to live, to learn, to grow,
To change and transform
And to be changed and transformed.
I choose you, Ian Clark Gerrard,
To be my life long partner and mate.
I choose you because you are my best friend
And my most passionate lover.
I choose you because,
Not only do you have the courage
To enter the world of my imagination,
You have the spunk and tenacity
To play with me there.
I choose you because you dare me to dream.
You lead me into a life that
Exceeds what I imagined possible.
Together we share a vision
Side by side we create
And together, we can transform the world.
On this day
I give you my sacred vow
I promise to love, honor, and respect you
All of my days.
I promise to share the journey
To eagerly greet the adventure of our lives
To share in both our successes and failures
To support you in sickness and in health.
I promise to help you overcome your obstacles
And assist you in "slaying" your demons.
I promise to help you through sorrows and loss
And to inspire you to:
"Never give up and never surrender."
I promise to respect
Your solitude and individuality.
I promise to serve you in being my fullest self
And to strive to create
An atmosphere in our relationship
Where we both can learn and grow.
And to this promise
I pledge I my mind, my body, and my soul
This holy trinity within me
My spirit, my light, my presence and being in this world
And this I pledge to you
With my love, my respect, and my devotion
On this day.
Ian: For all the jokes I’ve been making about not having written my vows until this morning, I have been thinking about them for a long time. A while back I ran across a computer program which makes anagrams of people’s names. When I entered ‘Suzanne Elizabeth Burdick,’ I found a couple of phrases which resonated for me.
One is ‘Sizable haze, but nice drunk,’ which made sense when trying to remember our earliest interactions at Alpha Delt parties ten years ago, when I was a senior looking towards an unknowable post-college future and you were a young frosh eager to experience all school had to offer.
The second phrase is ‘Eureka! Baths inclined buzz,’ which makes sense as I think about the last five years, learning more about your likes, dislikes and quirks, discovering that you really are the woman for me.
When I looked for anagrams of ‘Suzanne Elizabeth Gerrard’ the one which stood out was ‘zanier, absurd, gentler haze.’ I fully expect that my life from here on, as you and I go about our days in love, will be enveloped in a zanier, absurd, gentler haze than any we have known before.
It comes down to this: I no longer can imagine my life without you. I love you for the way you laugh, and the way you cry, and the way you make me do both. I love you because I understand you and because you baffle me utterly. I love you because you make me think and you make me feel. I love your laugh and I love your sneeze. I love you because you provide structure for my life in an utterly chaotic way.
When we are annoyed with each other you somewhat sheepishly say ‘I love you,’ as if that will make it all better. The thing is, it does.
Suzanne, I promise to love you.
I promise to play with you.
I promise to support you in everything you undertake.
I promise to treasure every moment we spend together.
And I promise to always be your monkey and your friend.
I am thrilled and honored that from this moment on, I will be your husband.
The Rings
The circle is an ancient and mystical symbol, a symbol of unity and wholeness. The wedding ring is a tangible token of lasting love, completeness, and devotion.
The rings before us today have an additional significance, in that they are the rings used by Ian’s parents at their wedding in 1964. The rings were originally engraved with the names of Julie and Terry; now the names of Zanne and Ian have been added.
Exchange of Rings
Zanne: Ian, I give you this ring as I give you my heart, my soul and my life. Cherish it, as I cherish you.
Ian: Suzanne, I give you this ring as I give you my heart, my soul and my life. Cherish it, as I cherish you.
(Moment of silence)
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
It is with great pleasure that I now introduce, for the first time, to friends and family, and to the larger community, Suzanne Elizabeth Gerrard and Ian Clark Gerrard, MR. AND MRS. GERRARD!!
(Recession)