We’re back! Jennifer and I, that is, having successfully gotten married and then immediately swanning off for the honeymoon. Nobody got hurt, as far as I know, and all in all I highly recommend the experience. No pics of the actual event yet, sorry about that.
The ceremony was beautiful. It was held at Marvimon, a reconstructed 1920’s auto showroom north of Downtown LA, now owned by artist couple Sherry Walsh and Miguel Nelson, who rent it out for private parties. Let me just say that Sherry and Miguel were enormously useful in pointing us to good people to help with all of the stuff that goes into throwing a smashing wedding. Most of all they introduced us to our caterers, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, a/k/a the Food Dudes, who whipped up some of the best bacon-wrapped dates and corn chowder and mac-and-cheese you’re ever likely to find. We hired them just in time, too — next week they have a show debuting on the Food Network, Two Dudes Catering, and pretty soon we won’t be able to afford them.
Our ceremony was performed by Rev. Mark Trodden, newly ordained by the Progressive Universal Life Church just for the occasion. (Although apparently you get a parking sticker, so there are benefits.) We wrote our own vows, based on the following algorithm: start with the Form for the Solemnization of Matrimony from the Book of Common Prayer, then remove from it all the references to God and anything too clunkily archaic (we crossed out the bit about “carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding”). You’re left with not much text, but a nice outline. Then insert into that some nice secular meditations on the meaning of love and marriage; we used W.H. Auden,
Rejoice, dear love, in Love’s peremptory word;
All chance, all love, all logic, you and I,
Exist by grace of the Absurd,
And without conscious artifice we die:So, lest we manufacture in our flesh
The lie of our divinity afresh,
Describe round our chaotic malice now,
The arbitrary circle of a vow.
and Rainer Maria Rilke,
We must trust in what is difficult. It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult. It is also good to love, because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is mere preparation…. Love consists in this: that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
Season with some interpolating phrases featuring a bit of levity, and you’re done.
Not that I would know, but I suspect that getting married when you’re 40-ish is a substantially different experience than when your 25-ish. Not that either is intrinsically better or worse, but it’s helpful to have some experience with other parties and weddings, and a sufficiently matured sense of taste that you both know exactly what you want. And it’s extremely nice to bring together people who have meant so much to you over various different phases of your life, and collect them in one place to celebrate the beginning of the next phase with the person you love.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled bloodless-academic-sciencey blogging.
“Bloodless”? I could have sworn I saw gushes of arterial spray, drizzling down the CV threads as if this blog were the set of Total Recall. Just imagine what’ll happen when the Anthropic Principle gets mentioned in the same thread as Richard Dawkins and the women-in-science problem.
But anyway. . . .
My most sincere congratulations and well-wishes to you both.
I’ve no idea what it’s like to be married when you’re 40ish. Wife and I got married when I was 26, wife 23. We were pretty broke (neither of us was yet out of school), completely irresponsible, and would definitely do it again! Needless to say, we’re still married with 3 kids, and doing pretty well.
Your wedding vows are pretty, but what is wrong with carnal lust?! 😉
Cheers and good luck.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong, but the Book of Common Prayer thinks differently.
Oh, bacon-wrapped dates are sooooo good! I’ve only had ’em once and in this case, the dates were stuffed with a bit of chorizo. Mmmmmm….::drool::
Congratulations, you two!
This all sounds very sweet 🙂 Congratulations!
I have to say that all of the weddings this yearof people I know who are
And right, I have to remember that html is sensitive to certain things, like the less than sign … I was trying to say that the weddings of people less than 25 this year have made me feel like a failure for still being unwed at 25, especially since I am in a country where I can actually get married. Luckily, my girlfriend doesn’t feel that way about it, so I am safe.
Congratulations!
Congratulations! 🙂
> Just imagine what’ll happen when the Anthropic Principle gets mentioned in the same thread as Richard Dawkins and the women-in-science problem.
According to today’s Daily Telegraph (a UK paper) Dawkins has been spotted two or three times recently attending mass, and by all accounts not with a film crew either. Perhaps in a year or two he’ll publish – The Atheist Delusion…
P.S. Wasn’t it Neische who said something like “Great revilers can become great reverers”? 😉
Congratulations. Next time I get married (ha ha! Just kidding dear!) we’re going to use something from the Song of Solomon.
Congrats Seaniffer!
Congrats to you both! A toast to your marriage, many happy years together, many discussions, both deep and humorous (not necessarily at the same time, but they could be), travels together and everything else life hold for you both. [Clinking of glasses]
Thanks for this wonderful post! Congratulations!
Big time congratulations to both of you.
(we crossed out the bit about “carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding”)
Dewd! That was the best part.
Lovely from beginning to end. I had been thinking that you ran off, got married and didn’t tell us but now I understand the delay: Dr. Trodden’s theological program. Congratulalations, best wishes to both of you and a great journey.
Best wishes.
Congrats, Sean and Jennifer! 🙂
It was the most visually stunning wedding I’ve ever attended – the interior of the artists’ space, with the candles and the flowers on the tables, low slung sofas at the most enclosed end and the open end, stars sparkling above the vow-taking spot…it was fabulous, absolutely fabulous, Sean was a stunner and had definitely been watching the Ocean’s XX films, his suit was gorgeous and he was waltzing around the venue like he was made for dinner jackets, Jennifer would have been gorgeous in a tablecloth, she’s that kind of woman, but she ended up in a plummy satiny number that fitted her perfectly, with cool gorgeous goth stilettos…the Reverend was suitably reverent, I’ve heard he’ll hire himself out for good food and drink, if any Cosmic readers are looking to get married…my only complaint, I must add this, is that there was so little blow!! So few firearms!! And only a pair or two of edible panties!! Well, perhaps when they renew their vows…
Many congratulations to Sean and Jennifer O, it was a fabulous wedding and you both have the most darling friends, I had a great time, and never fully appreciated how awesome and hip and edgy the downtown Los Angeles scene is, it is great and fits both of you perfectly….felicidades a los amores!!
Congrats Sean!
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Damn am I slow on the uptake (although I wasn’t checking much in the way of blogs during my honeymoon — and I’m still barely checking my own). Congratulations to both of you!
And I (we) completely resonate with your comments about getting married, um, later. Knowing what you want from a wedding (and ideally, a marriage) and trying to at least approximate it in real life is daunting, sometime stressful, but ultimately deeply satisfying when things finally work out. It was quite reassuring to find how supportive people can be under the inevitable pressures, even when neither of you are really “kids” anymore.
Anyway, all the best!