Ceremonial

Oh for the love of god. I am incensed, aerated, and possibly even wrathful. The problem: I engaged the services of a non-denominational hippy to marry us in about September or so and had quite a few conversations with her regarding the wedding ceremony/vows. I feel that it is fair to say that I do not suffer overly from indirectness or lack of clarity in either speech or on paper. I consistently conveyed our shared reserved natures, our desire for a simple ceremony, and our disinterest in flowery sentiments. We prefer, as a rule, to keep our flowery sentiments to ourselves. Also, we were hoping for a ceremony in which we could both feel just uncomfortable, not flamingly awfully embarrassed.

Well, I received the draft of the ceremony late yesterday (oh that’s a problem too, trust me), and holy mother of the earth and the stars is it out of control. At first I was a bit shocked, both by the words themselves and by the complete and total disregard for anything I have said up until this point. Then I snickered, quite a bit. Now it’s kind of a combination of irritation, mild ire, and gentle rage. I do not feel that this person has heard our wishes; instead, I feel like this person has decided that she knows what we should hear and say and is operating from that standpoint. This is probably the greater source of my irritation. I dislike, and by dislike I mean I could probably shift tectonic plates with the intensity of the feeling, people telling me how I should think or feel. I find it enormously presumptuous and, frankly, gross, in addition to being a huge violation of professionalism. I believe that few people, if any, have any kind of authority on love and marriage and I deeply resent anyone else defining those things for me. Which she has done, in crappy prose.

Particular phrases that stand out to me:

“This union is magnificent and so tender to behold.”  WTF? She has not beheld us at any point, maybe our union is both pedestrian and pointy not tender. She doesn’t even know. That is a dumb thing to say and it is awkwardly worded.

“Your love is too great to be confined by walls.” Well that’s just an abuse of physics because love is ethereal not corporeal so of course it can’t be confined by walls. Maybe some other container. Glass ampoules are pretty good for containing things. I’m just saying, we could be confined she just hasn’t looked into the right containment materials.

“You carry each other deep inside, wherever you go.” Now that’s just gross. Plus there will be a 14 year old boy at this ceremony and he will snicker. He is not fit for human society yet.

“Drink from each other’s inner well and be renewed…” I don’t even know what to say here. On a regular basis I see what’s in people’s inner wells, as it becomes outer, into a basin. The symbolism here is just too much. Also it’s gross. THERE WILL BE NO DRINKING FROM INNER WELLS.

Argh. Do you see my anguish with this? I cannot be present while someone says this kind of shit. These are just excerpts, we are talking pages of this where she talks about love and hardship and what those things are and what they mean to us. I am quite certain that she does not know what those things mean to us. I am, however, quite certain that we do.