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People who are planning a wedding do some weird things.  In my case, I
found myself preparing for my upcoming nuptials by paging through a book
called "New Wedding Ceremonies" by Khoren Arisian (Vintage Books, 1973).
I don't know whether or not it was the result the punchiness brought on by
twelve straight hours of Wedding Details followed by a serious attempt to
write a serious ceremony, but the fact is that my fiancee and I found
ourselves rolling on the floor in helpless gales of hysterical laughter
over the excerpt I'm about to share with you.  We hope you like it too.

Remember... this is for real.  I am not making this up.

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Prelude: "Consecration of the House Overture" -- Ludwig von Beethoven

Officiant: We join in Beethoven's consecration and reaffirm a new
consecration: the union of two already infinite plurals.  This marriage is
the induction of two otherwise separate but infinite beings into an
infinitely larger Becoming.

Groom: There is no limit to induction.  There is no limit to the inductive
growth of the We.  This union of apparently two creatures is itself a
growing.  It is a growing into growing.  Today we are celebrating the
enormity of the beauty of the enormity of our growth [sic]: today,
tomorrow, and beyond all tense.  We affirm that lovingness and livingness
are themselves united in growth, as are we.

It is therefore our glorious and divine purpose to fly mountains, to sow
petalscent, to kibbutz eternity, to will time, to expand with the
universe, to glorify glory, to love with love.  All man-made restraints to
our fulfillment self-destruct before us.  The serious scholarly spirit of
gravity, the lack of trust which dictates unhuman rules, in fact, anything
confining, is impotent before our auto-rejuvenating kinetic potential.

Bride: Where there is love is there trust is there limitlessness.  We
affirm our limitlessness.  We are flamboyant fools.  [Got that right.  Ok,
enough with the editorializing.]  Together we shall mature but never age.
To grow old is a contradiction.  To grow is the dictum.  To mature is to
become younger and younger more and more gracefully.  We hereby commit
ourselves to a serenity more flamboyant and more foolish than the
petalfall of Magnolia.

We are both in love, and we are in love with each other.  To love is to
live is to create is to laugh is to revel is to share is to dance is to
fly is to prevail is to grow is to smile is to dream is to live.

Groom: We mean, of course, delight.  [Of course.  Oops.  Sorry.]  Delight
is what "we" means.  This is the purest double helix of our us-ness.
Ultimately, all we effect in the world is immediately self-judged by its
consistency with our delight.  We shall make our own conventions.
Essentially, what we want you to do is feel what we are saying.  Being
able to feel something is the only way to know it.  It is one giant step
beyond empathy until the feeling becomes _you_.  We have discovered this
and are rediscovering it all the time.  We feel what we know.

[ in order to save my typing fingers, we cut to the vows... ]

Officiant: Once again, sharing and trust enhance and cause each other in
an infinite instantaneous cycle which powers all exploits.  Any things
which enhance and cause each other in an infinite instantaneous cycle, any
things which comprise an infinite pro-gress, comprise units and examples
of livingness.  It is as when a man who is laughing sees himself laughing.
It is the trick of serendipity whereby one can create and observe the
creation at exactly the same moment: instant feedback.  If there could be
degrees of livingness, they could be measured by how little entropy they
release.

Groom: We are infinite energy-generators, but this is inconceivable.
Therefore we are a miracle.  A miracle stands -- or flies -- beyond vows.
And yet within us lies a drive which functions as a mutual vow.
Evolutionists call it integration, the tendency to organize or create, the
tendency against the tendency to dissolution, the tendency against
entropy.  This vow before vows is the affirmation to be as great as is
humanly impossible.

Officiant: (to the bride) Do you, ______, affirm to be as great as is
humanly impossible?

Bride: Yes.

Officiant: (to the groom) Do you, ______, affirm to be as great as is
humanly impossible?

Groom: Yes.

Officiant:  And so we have returned to where we began, as a union of
already plurals.  As a symbol of this mutual infinite instantaneous
cycle, this inpansion and expansion of the Nietzschean eternal recurrence,
______ and ______ will exchange rings.

(To the couple) ______ and ______, in expressing your private affirmations
before this public company, you have pronounced yourselves husband and
wife.  You now face the prospect of a richer future than either of you
alone could have looked forward to before.  Because you have a richer
future, you will also enjoy an infinitely greater present.  From this
moment on, go your separate ways together, remembering always to be each
other's best friend.

Postlude music:  "The End" (The Beatles, "Abbey Road"), "Eyes of a
Child" (Moody Blues, "To Our Children's Children's Children").  [The
Moody Blues have a hell of a lot to answer for.]

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