On a much more pleasant note

[thewayne]

Apostate wanted to see our wedding vows, well, here ya go. Russ said no problem, she doesn't mind if I post the whole service text. The words are part me, part Russet, and part from the minister. I like them.


I promise to love, honor and cherish you. In times of prosperity, I will celebrate with you. In times of adversity, I will support you. I will be with you in sorrow, for sorrow shared is diminished. I will be with you in joy, for joy is increased. I will negotiate our differences with respect and a loving heart.

I take you to be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you, trusting what I do not yet know, with respect for your integrity and faith in your abiding love for me, through all our years, and in all that life may bring us.


Russet is a very independent woman and more than a bit of a feminist. There are a lot of trappings of slavery/treating women as chattel in a lot of the common vows, we worked pretty hard to excise those elements.

Comments

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Thanks for being willing to share those. I am really impressed and touched by what y'all came up with; they share a lot of who you both are. I can see the point about avoiding a lot of the "trappings of slavery/treating women as chattel" in what you came up with. In my mind, you succeeded wonderfully.

Please pass on my thanks to Russ as well for being willing to share those.

Thanks

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I relayed your comments to Russ and she appreciated them.

I heard an interesting story today. At the ceremony, Audrey, my best man, did a reading from Gibran's The Prophet. Russ didn't want to have Sally, her maid of honor, do a reading as she was arriving the previous night and wasn't at the rehearsal. So the original plan was for Hope, one of Russet's college roommates, do a reading. But Hope has a six month old daughter, and there was no telling if Joy would cooperate (fortunately she did). So as a backup, Russ gave her mom a copy of the reading so that she could do it if need be. As it turns out, Russ lost the additional copies of the reading that I had made, so she gave her mom a full copy of the service. Well, both her parents apparently followed the entire ceremony through the script!

I find that kind of amusing. Afterwards, her father complimented us on having a 'fine, spiritual ceremony.' That was nice, and quite touching.

Re: Thanks

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

That is sweet! Thanks for sharing that, too, my friend.