It Always Rains In April

Last Sunday I got married. Not even my imagination could have imagined such a perfect and magical ceremony and intimate reception. It only took such a perfect person to help get to that ritual, and Nicole is that perfect person.

The next morning was weird, because despite what I had thought and what I had heard from other guys, I felt different. I was married man, and it means something.

There was so much magic that day. The grounds where we were getting married is steeped in symbols and meaning, and it was a rainy spring day, a day of growing and metamorphosis. Rays of sunshine would peek through the clouds and spotlight a tree or a rabbit. The air smelled of flowers and trees making love.

We had chosen the Two of Cups from the Tarot as one of our primary symbols, so each table had two cups with candles in them. The card symbolizes love, togetherness, and a close bond. Nicole and I are very conscience of symbols and their power, so we wanted to bring to our wedding an emblem that represents love in its truest form.

We also had hands on each table that are reaching out to community. It was important to bring the idea of our social and familiar bonds into our relationship. We wanted to move away from the idea that a couple is alone in the universe, back to back, and against the rest of the world, but an idea of us joining the universe and together helping to make the world a better place.

Hanging above us as our alter was a wreath of flowers and rose quartz crystals. We wanted spring eternal along with a magical source in the form of crystals. This was designed by Roddy and my now sibling-in-law, Stevie. Rose quartz represent unconditional love, which is so important to Nicole and me in our relationship. We try to give without conditions whether it is between us or with others.

These are my vows I read to Nicole:

This is not somewhere I thought I’d be standing. I have always been standing where they are standing looking at where I am standing with a mix of superiority and envy, and I certainly never thought I’d be standing here now. 
When I met you, I was not looking for a wife; in fact, I wasn’t really looking at a future at all. I was sick and awaiting news that might be giving me a known expiration date. When I met you, I couldn’t resist this mix of beauty and wonder with darkness and insanity, so I invented a pool party at my parents’ house so that I could invite you on to my turf. 
I had no idea that the next day we would be beginning a relationship that has us up here at this alter with these people and this dog. 
A vow’s definition is a solemn promise or assertion; specifically: one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition. It has roots with the Sanskrit word, Vãghat, which means Sacrifice. David Foster Wallace once said, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” This is what we do for each other, and this is what I want to do for you every day. 
You are worth every fight and misunderstanding we’ve ever had. You are worth every yelling match and silent scorn. I have never regretted any minute I’ve had with you. I am here right now because I choose you. 
We are a partnership. We together make the earth a better place through service, laughter, creation, and Love. We make each other better. We won’t let the other get stuck – you especially won’t let me stay stuck. 
Actor Ricardo Montalbán, who was the star of TV show Fantasy Island, says, “True love doesn’t happen right away; it’s an ever-growing process. It develops after you’ve gone through many ups and downs, when you’ve suffered together, cried together, laughed together.” And we have done that. We have been through so many ups and downs and proved to each other over and over again that we are staying put. 
I will continue to be honest with you, I will continue to be open minded. I will be your sounding board, your confidante. I will continue to be a part of our community that we have created for ourselves, and the communities that we bring together with this union. We will not be alone against the world, but together, with all here and others, making the world a better place. 
When researching vows on the World Wide Web, it suggested a lot of well-known clichés, but no cliché means more to me than the idea of home. You said to me that your biggest fear is being homeless, but that with me you said you’d be fine if we became homeless together, and I thought about that bell hooks line from All About Love, where she writes, “When angels speak of love they tell us it is only by loving that we enter an earthly paradise. They tell us paradise is our home and love our true destiny.” I am home and fulfilled. 
Let’s create this. We already are. Don’t let me forget what we are doing. I will stay open, honest, care, and trust. I will understand that nothing is real, and everything is permitted. We will need to laugh. If Rufus has taught us anything, is that we need to laugh. This world can be hard and unforgiving and seems bigger than it really is, and sometimes we can make our world so small that we can forget to breathe, but I am here so that we can go through this together and make something out of nothing. 
I love you, Nicole. You’re my Bing Bong. 

I even picked my groomsmyn with care. It was important that the people standing by my side were people that despite the history I might have with them, that they were people that I knew I could count on in the future. Some have long storied histories with me, while others are fairly new.

Danny is my best man because he is my brother, and despite anything I have ever done, he weirdly believes in me. Jon is my longest living friend, and through thick and thin has stuck by me. We have grown up and old together. Megan taught me so much about love and service, that I felt that I had to have her stand up there with me. James and Yousef are new friends, but James has a lot of wisdom to share with me and teaches me about humility every day and Yousef is a solid guy who I feel a lot of kinship with and hope to learn from.

We had our grandparents pictures on display. My grandmother, my Granny, wanted me to be married and happy for my entire life, and I waited a year too late. In one of the pictures was at my brother’s wedding where the DJ had people who were married a certain amount of years stay on the dance floor, and when it was all over they were the only ones left with over 50 years of marriage, and you can tell from the picture, they were madly in love with each other still.

It was also important to us that Rufus be a part of the ceremony. It meant so much to have my nieces walk him down the aisle and to have him sleeping lying across my feet as I read my vows to Nicole. He has taught us so much about laughter, love, and taking care of each other.

Marriage is this ritual where the world sees us as separate beings that join as one. We performed this ceremonial practice and when we walked out, we were seen as completely different. We are now seen as one. I am now tied to Nicole in a way that I wasn’t tied to her before. Even though we were already living together and relying on each other for emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial support, we had to have a ceremony that changed our communities’ view of us.

Our wedding brought a lot of our different communities together. Our families had never met, and our social and work lives mingled. Everyone there seemed to be in full support of our commitment. It was the most loved I had ever felt. I was humbled by my family and friends, and I was so touched by my new family.

Nicole and I will never be able to truly express our gratitude for the people that stood by us during this huge transformation in our lives. Some of the people were there from the very beginning, and some had just joined us, and we hope will continue to walk with us. It was a perfect weekend, and way beyond my expectation for what I had ever thought about when it came to my own wedding.

Nicole has taught me so much about being a partner, and I hope I have taught her a few things too. She has captured my heart in such a way that I can’t imagine a world without her, and I have walked through the ritual of marriage to make that easier. She is a beautiful and wise woman, and I will never be able to tell her how grateful I am for her being in my life.

I love her.