The Cere­mony

Welcome:
At the park, Michael, Doug and Ros­anne move towards the ࢀoefrontࢀ and put down the basket. Michael picks up singing bowl, and rings it three times. Michael starts walk­ing clock­wise around the wit­nesses. Ros­anne and Doug follow. We return to the basket. Ros­anne and Doug ask the nearest person to stand as an attend­ant and receive their consent.

Cere­mony of the Goblets:
Douglas and Ros­anne take their indi­vidual bottles of mead from the basket and fill their
indi­vidual gob­lets. They hand the bottles to the attendants..

Michael takes the joint goblet from the basket. He holds it up high, but within reach.

Ros­anne steps for­ward and pours a third of her mead into the joint goblet, saying:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the strength I bring to this relationship”.

Douglas steps for­ward and pours a third of his mead into the joint goblet, saying:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the peace I bring to this relationship”.

With the next third, Ros­anne says:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the com­pas­sion I bring to this relationship”.

With his next third, Doug says:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the spirit I bring to this relationship”.

With her last third, Ros­anne says:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the exper­i­ence I bring to this relationship”.

With his last third, Doug says:

“Let this wine sym­bol­ize the bal­ance I bring to this relationship”.

They hand the empty cups back to the assistants.

Ros­anne takes the joint cup from Michael and, hold­ing it, makes her declaration/vows (I said some­thing like: neither of us is per­fect but I think we’re per­fect for each other and I know from exper­i­ence that people in rela­tion­ships grow and change and that I hope we grow and change in ways that com­ple­ment each other) and fin­ishes with:

ࢀoeWill you drink from our cup?”

Doug nods his assent and drinks.

Doug takes the cup from Ros­anne. (He actu­ally let out an enorm­ous whoop! at this point). Hold­ing it, he makes his declaration/vows (he said some­thing about learn­ing together and how much we’d already learned and how he was look­ing for­ward to the future) and fin­ishes with:

ࢀoeWill you drink from our cup?”

Ros­anne nods her assent and drinks.

Michael: Assembled friends and family, who have been invited here by Ros­anne and Doug to wit­ness this cere­mony. At times in any rela­tion­ship, life can be rocky. If this couple should be drained, and need sup­port for deep­en­ing their com­mit­ment to each other, will you pledge to be there for them and help to fill their cup? If you will, say ࢀoewe will.ࢀ

Assembled: We will!

Doug and Ros­anne: We trust you will and thank you.

Then Doug and Ros­anne will jointly pour the remainder of the cup into the Earth.

They put the cup back into the basket.

Cere­mony of the Rings:

Doug and Ros­anne retrieve the rings from the basket.

Michael: Repeat after me:

I, Douglas, offer you, Ros­anne, this ring as a symbol of my love, trust and devotion.

(Ros­anne puts on the ring)

I, Ros­anne, offer you, Douglas, this ring as a symbol of my love, trust and devotion.

(Douglas puts on the ring)

Michael: Just as these circles are without end, so your love for each other is end­less. I now pro­nounce you wed, for so long as love shall last.

[I’m not put­ting up photos of this because we used tem­por­ary hemp rings we wove until the real rings come through.]

You may kiss.

[Watch that hand, woman!]

Crush­ing of the Goblets:

Michael: The first act of your union is to sweep away the mater­ial past and set out together on your journey.

Doug and Ros­anne take the old gob­lets from the attend­ants and the cloth from the basket, wrap the gob­lets in cloth, hold hands and together stomp on their respect­ive goblets.

Ros­anne & Doug together: We wel­come our journey.

Every­one applauds. As expec­ted, a couple of people shout Mazeltov! (Thanks Bean, thanks Lars!)

Ros­anne: Thank you for wit­ness­ing our com­mit­ment today. Weࢀ™d now like to invite you to join us back at the house to share in the sweet­ness of honey wine, a symbol of our hope for the sweet­ness of our future, and to light our first fire together to sym­bol­ize the pas­sion of our partnership.

Ros­anne and Doug take the mead from the attend­ants, thank them and pick up the basket. We all walk back together.

On the left, Doug’s assist­ant, Cathy and her part­ner Joe. On the right, my assist­ant Sylvan. They were chosen because they both wore the bridal colour, red, but they also happened to be two of our closest friends.

Left, Doug’s sister Linda and her hus­band Michael; Right, Doug’s niece Andrea and her boy­friend John. We had the fun­ni­est con­ver­sa­tion about whether I was going to be Aunt Ros­anne and I said, “You don’t still call Doug “Uncle Doug”, do you? And she said, “Yeah, I do…”

Left, Doug’s good friends from Seattle, Jezebel and Bruce; Right, my friends Beth and Devin and Doug’s col­league from mas­sage school, Ross and his wife Karen.

Next page: the reception…