It's a season of many weddings: one last week, and one just now! Yesterday we flew down to the DC area for the wedding of a dear college friend, which I had the pleasure of crafting and performing.

Creating this ceremony was an interesting challenge. The bride feels her deepest spiritual connection is to the natural world and the divinity immanent in creation; the groom (though reared nominally Christian) is "allergic to religion." We spent some months talking and emailing about the ceremony, sending ideas and drafts back and forth, before finalizing the words that would make their wedding real. I groove on this process, so I enjoyed the challenge of stitching together a wedding which would reflect who and where they are.

On a practical level, it's a very good thing their wedding was indoors; the torrential rains were impressive, as were the thunder and lightning. (Apparently thunder punctuated most of the ceremony; I was so caught-up in the ritual that I didn't notice!) What I'll remember most about this wedding will be how Kim and Martial's faces transformed the moment they were at the front of the room together. I love the light that gets created at a moment like that. Their vows were dazzling, too -- they each wrote their own, and both sets were heartfelt and powerful. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And then, of course, came the joy of the reception -- getting to reconnect with old friends, to make new ones, and to celebrate Kim and Martial together. Several guests said tremendously kind things about the ceremony. And though it wasn't a Jewish ceremony, one fellow engaged me in a delightful conversation about Jewish Renewal afterwards! (If you'd like to see the ceremony, you can go to my site and click on "ceremony archive," or download it here in .pdf form.)

And now I'm home, still floating a little on the wave of having done something for and with my friends that really matters. Three cheers for Kim and for Martial; may they always find as much joy in one another as they do today.

(Photoset here, for those who are interested...)

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