This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Wedding Dialogues. You may print this document for your personal use. Do not reproduce it by other means or for another purpose without my permission.

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Bridging the gap and affirming your union

Notes for couples

Although this ceremony appears to be written for two women named Lauren and Lee, these two names and genders are no more than examples. They were very late additions to the wedding. This ceremony is equally appropriate for female couples and male couples. The ceremony is also appropriate for opposite-sex couples as long as they remove the mirror ceremony (the final, optional section of the wedding).

The mirror ceremony is also self-sufficient. It can be performed by itself or at the end of a different wedding ceremony.

This ceremony is meant to be read aloud, not memorized.

If you decide to use this ceremony, please click on Using a Ceremony You Find Here for more information.



The ceremony at a glance

Where and when: Indoors or outdoors, any season, any time of day

Who: Female or male same-sex couples, but the wedding works equally well for opposite-sex couples if they omit the mirror ceremony

Number of participants other than couple: With mirror ceremony, 7-31+ including 4-16 with speaking parts; without mirror ceremony, 1

Procession: Possible, but not part of ceremony

Music: Music encouraged at ceremony's end

Rings: Giving of rings included in ceremony

Special: Last section of wedding, the mirror ceremony, can be used by itself or in combination with another wedding


Synopsis
This wedding concerns the gap between two partners and the ongoing work of marriage to bridge it. It emphasizes two ways partners might bridge the gap between them: acting with kindness toward each other and trusting each other deeply enough to discuss their private emotions and wishes. The two partners begin the ceremony at a physical distance from one another, and gradually they move closer together. In time they are close enough to exchange wedding rings. Finally they sit together and share cake and soup.

The last portion of the wedding is optional and it is intended for same-sex couples only. In it, several friends surround the two partners with mirrors in order to recognize their joining in marriage and to encourage their future communion within a society that often refuses to reflect the value of same-sex marriages.

Ceremony
Separate selves
Officiant: "Today two independent people will try to come together in the lifelong communion of marriage. So welcome, friends, to Lauren and Lee's wedding." Leaves the area.

Lauren and Lee both walk in, if possible from behind the performance area. They stand on opposite ends of the performance area. They face the guests but angle toward each other. At the center of the performance area is a table holding two rings on one end and a cup of soup and a piece of cake on the other. It doesn't matter whether or not the items on the table are visible to the guests.

Lauren: "Sometimes after you've held me long enough, Lee, I feel like our souls are merging. As we grow closer, it seems that parts of me find their home in your soul. But on our wedding day I must question our merging and even our closeness: where is its limit? I will always be able to raise my separate body up from our bed, and walk out the door, and notice the cars and the trees, and it won't be you smelling that exhaust and those pines, it won't be your body walking down the street."

Lee: "No, our bodies will never become one flesh, not really. My energy to work – that comes from my own separate body. When I wake each day, I feel that energy firing up. What if your caresses soothe my fire and lullaby my energy? I've worked hard to make my life. I have so much work left to do. I envisioned my version of heaven on earth, and I knew no one would build it for me, so I learned how to build and I started work alone."

Lauren: "When I walk outside alone, I project onto those cars and trees remembered images from my years without you, images that will never be yours."

Lee: "It used to be that when I was lifting beams to build my heaven, I answered questions gruffly under the weight. I didn't have to worry about the gentleness you're teaching me. I didn't have to worry that I was missing anything if I worked until I fell to bed in no mood to talk."

Lauren: "Your vision of heaven is different from my own, though I think our heavens might share some rooms. If on some winter afternoon you announce you've revised your vision of heaven, I won't know as surely as you will if you're just suiting your fear or convenience – you will always predict best if your new plan won't feel like heaven once you cut your boards to its specifications."

Lee: "I saw that my heaven would require more than friends popping in. To live in the heaven that only I could imagine and only I was driven to build, I would need one true companion to live my days and nights with me. I searched long years for that companion. I thought I knew what it would be like to build my heaven beside her and to rest with her sometimes in my unfinished building. But there was so much about living beside a real companion that I never wished for or imagined. I didn't know that to reach you, I'd have to stretch toward you with much more than just hunger."

Lauren: "I thought no girlfriend would stay unless I dazzled her. But there wasn't much about me that would dazzle anyone. I'd had many glimpses of my own heaven, to put life in your terms, and I was squinting my eyes to make the glimpses stay so I could build from them. I started work on my own crazy vision of heaven, but more often I worked to pay my rent or to keep my friends from crying. Even if I had already finished building my heaven when I searched for my companion, it would have been nothing worth displaying on dates – most people would think my finished heaven was a junkyard. What vision I could hold together, it dazzled only me. And I was no angel or god to match any heaven. I was just one more crazy human, seeing some quirky vision, working hard sometimes and more often getting distracted, working hard but falling short, sometimes building whole rooms that afterwards I hated. At first I tried to put on a good show for you. But you didn't want to be dazzled. If you had liked my phony show you would have been that much farther from my actual lonely self. I'm still finding out that love is not about admiration or worship, it's about trying to bridge that space that stands between every solitary person and the next."

Lee: "Each of us wishing and sensing and working alone."


They give trust
The officiant enters the performance area.

Officiant: [To Lauren] "You can't cross that distance between you and Lee by putting on a beautiful show. You can cross it only now and then with hunger for Lee's company. The best way to cross that broad space between you is to give. Give your trust. Give your kindness. Stretch your trust or stretch your kindness toward Lee across that space. Try it. Try to stretch your trust. Trust that Lee won't hurt you, even though she might. Offer her your vulnerable self. Stretch beyond the boundaries of your inhibitions to give Lee your self. Make her a confession."

Lauren: "Me? In front of everyone?"

Officiant: "You don't have to, you don't have to commune at your wedding. But if you refuse you'll set a sad precedent for your marriage – always calling yourselves married but so much space between you."

Lee: "These worries about our marriage that we voiced, these are our confessions. Now Lauren and I share a worry, the worry that we won't be able to cross this space between us to meet and hug and warm each other. Lauren, I've told you before – just as you feel, I feel when I love you most intensely like our souls are merging. But I worry that it's an illusion. I worry, instead of coming here today, what if you had left town and left me for good? Somewhere in you is the potential to leave me, or at least the potential to try. I wonder, if you left me, after years or even months of mourning, would I heal? If I could heal, and you could heal, and we could each go on alone, our souls would not have really merged. Maybe you would have changed my shape a little, but no more. Because if our souls are well on their way to merging into one soul, I don't think we could live the rest of our lives apart, live apart and work for good lives even. If we could live apart, our sense that we're merging must be an illusion. That's just one worry. I wish I had no doubts about our marriage, I wish I was completely strong and sure. I'm sure that I love you, but I'm not confident of much more. That's one confession."

Lauren: "Lee, here is one of my confessions, one I can make in front of an audience, but it's you I offer it to. I can't guess most of your wishes for our marriage. I can't even tell most days when you wish I would act differently than I do. I've read about people who intuit their partner's troubles and wants – maybe some people really do have that gift, but I don't. Or maybe some people can anticipate their partner's every feeling because they're so much like their partners. I guess I'm not that much like you, or else you're not so simple."

Lee: "If I was your clone, you wouldn't yearn for anything in me, and there would be no need for you to commune with me through talking."

Lauren: "That's right! That's what I was coming to: you're so far from me if you don't tell me what you're thinking. Please talk to me! Let your wishes pass through those walls of your body that I can't see through, let your wishes cross out to me through your lips. Tell me what you want from me. Maybe you don't feel eloquent, but I won't mind if you stammer and wave your hands and I have to question you for hours before you can articulate what you mean. I won't mind if in the end your wishes sound weird or trivial or ugly – I don't want you to admire you, I want to know you, talk with you, love you."

Lee: "Here's one wish. Turns out it's a lot like yours. If ever you dance with me, and you find yourself gazing over my shoulder at another life, longing for another life, I want you to tell me what you want, I want you to grab me as soon as you notice what you're doing, I want you to drag me off the dance floor and tell me your wish. You say to let my private wishes cross out through my lips? Don't seal your wishes up, don't let them bang against your chest, let me touch them. Trust me – commune with me in your wishing, and I will take your wish, I'll fulfill it right then if that's easy but what I promise you is that I'll treasure it. If your wish embarrasses you, tell it to me and I'll hold you until some of your blush rubs off on my own cheeks. If your wish shames you, tell it to me: I'll eat your wish and its weight will be spread between two bellies."

Lauren: "But then my wish would hurt you – it would embarrass you, or shame you, or complain against you."

Lee: "Some of those nights your trouble won't translate to me. I won't share your burden, and because of that I'll be able to comfort you. But you're right: some nights your wish will hurt me. Some nights – I hope I recognize which ones! – my role will be to balance sturdily and just receive your wish. Some nights I'll suppress my own emotions because you'll come to me so naked, in just-grown skin you've never shown me before, and you'll need me to blanket you with my arms. Some nights you'll need my pure kindness, so I'll steady my voice over the lump in my throat. Other nights when your wish embarrasses you or frightens you, we'll blush or tremble together. If your wish brings us to a strange new cave, we'll explore that cave together. As long as I don't turn against you, as long as I don't accuse you for confessing your hurtful wish."

Lauren: "But not all wishes should be fulfilled. Thank you for meaning to bow before my wish. Bow before my wish, then, but don't bow in servitude. Only bow in reverence to that part of me you haven't seen before. Bow, then hug me and talk with me, and we'll decide together if we should fulfill my wish then or ever."

Lee: "Decide together. Trusting and talking, telling everything." [To officiant] "Did we make it just now? Did Lauren cross that space between our separate sensing minds when she talked with me? Did I trust Lauren enough when I confessed, did I trust enough to cross that space and penetrate her poised and polished surface?"

Officiant: "You both crossed some of that distance just now, when you gave your trust. But the space will grow back. The space will push its way between you, and your skins will grow new callous layers. You'll have to bridge the gap between you thousands of times – only then will your relationship truly deserve the title 'marriage.'"

Lauren: "I want to, Lee. I want to stretch toward you week after week."

Lee: "We did it once."

Lee moves toward the table and Lauren. Lauren moves toward the table and Lee.

Officiant (as they near each other): "Stay a little apart, stay across the table from each other."

Lee: "We don't want to."

But Lee and Lauren stop on opposite sides of the table, each on the side of the table she is closest to.

Officiant: "Then earn your way closer. Reach toward Lauren by giving her some kindness."


They give rings and cake
Lauren and Lee now sit in chairs or remain standing, as they choose. They sit or stand across the table from one another – Lauren on the side she approached from, Lee on the side she approached from. They face the guests but also angle toward each other across the table.

Lee: "Lauren, I know I'm selfish. I know that often I care about my work and my own progress toward building my heaven more than I care about anything else. But I will try every day to care at least as much about you and our marriage. I can't think of any great kindness I can do you right here, except to tell you this. I promise you, I will keep giving to you for the rest of my life. I will give you my love. I will give you my trust. I will give you so many of my crazy plans and wishes and perceptions in the form of talk. I will try to give you kindness even when I feel threatened. I will give you my soul as a companion who maybe, sometimes, if I give enough, you can really commune with."

"Watch."

Lee sets the script down on the table. She takes one ring off the table. She shows it to Lauren and the audience. Then she puts it on her own finger. She picks up her script with the hand not wearing the ring, and she displays the hand her ring is on during her next line.

Lee: "I will wear this ring to remind myself of the daily gifts I must make you now that you've done me the kindness of surrounding me with your life."

Brief pause.

Lee: "But I'm not alone anymore in remembering my daily responsibilities. Here is another ring."

Lee takes the second ring off the table and shows it to Lauren and the audience with one hand while holding the script with the other.

Lee: "Wear it and remind me that I must always give to you if we're to commune and keep communing."

Lee sets her script down. She moves closer to Lauren, around the front of the table, facing the guests. She does this regardless of whether she can already reach Lauren's finger – the point is that, in soul and in body, Lee moves closer to Lauren when she gives Lauren the ring.

Lee puts the ring on Lauren's finger. Lauren accepts the ring.

Lauren: "Thank you. Lee, it's so hard for me to reach you and commune, but this is the great task that our marriage requires me to complete time and again. Maybe if I reach for you by giving, I will succeed in crossing the space between our separate souls. I promise I will try to give and give, and try to give some more to you.

"Here's a piece of cake, Lee. Please share it with me. I ask that you eat what I eat sometimes. I want you to. Let me feed you a little."

Lauren moves around the front of the table until she is a foot or two away from Lee, so that there is room for both partners to set down their food and scripts on the table behind and between them. Alternatively Lauren can move so close to Lee that their bodies or chairs touch. The reason for staying a foot or two apart is that reaching away from each other to set things on the table can be awkward, but if the partners solve this problem, Lauren can move very close to Lee. Lauren brings the plate of cake and her script with her when she moves.

Both partners will probably need to set down their scripts down at certain points while they feed each other and eat. This is fine as long as each partner remembers to pick up her script every time she sets it down.

Lauren feeds two or three handfuls or forkfuls of cake to Lee. Then she offers Lee another bite.

Lee: "Thank you. But I can't receive so much yet. You forgot to eat any. Here."

Lee feeds Lauren the bite of cake that Lauren just offered her.

Lauren: "I like making a mess of our separate faces together. Are you ready for more?"

Lee: "Yes."

They continue to feed each other the cake until it's gone. For the most part, Lauren feeds Lee.

Next Lauren fetches the soup from the other side of the table. She drinks one sip of soup.

Lauren: "Now I have another messy food to give you. It's wedding soup. Its liquid tastes as thick as love. Its one thick liquid contains all its separate chunks. If I give enough to you, if you give enough to me, and also if we're kind enough to our union, if we protect our union and put enough into it, our union will bind the varied gifts we've made to it and to each other, our marriage will bind our gifts and our separate selves all together in one delicious cream soup."

Lee: Laughs if possible, at least smiles. "In one soup! That's a funny metaphor! I like it. Give me some wedding soup. Please?"

Lauren: "Drink from my cup."

Lauren picks up the cup and holds it up while Lee drinks from it.

Lee holds the cup too, tilting it back as far as necessary to drink. She drinks.

Lee: "You drink some wedding soup!"

Lee holds the cup while Lauren drinks from it, and Lauren does the tilting.

Lauren: "Do you want more?"

Lee: "Yes!"

Lee drinks again the same way.

Lauren: "Me too, I want more!"

They finish the soup. They both set their scripts down. If they haven't already, they move their chairs or bodies so close that they are touching.

Officiant: "So there you are, close together, finally feeding each other, finally drinking from one cup. Friends, Lee and Lauren have finally come together in marriage. You may applaud."

The audience cheers. Lauren and Lee can hug and kiss if they like, and they should touch in some way. ¹

Legally binding Canadian exchanges can be added at this point, but they fit better at the end of the mirror ceremony.


Mirror ceremony
While the audience applauds, as many stagehands as necessary approach and remove the table and everything on it, including Lauren's and Lee's scripts. These stagehands can double as mirror-bearers.

After this, Lauren and Lee should continue to touch for the rest of the ceremony – they might put their arms around each other, hold hands, or even stay in a hug. They will no longer be encumbered by scripts.

The mirror-bearers approach the couple, some from behind, some from the left, and some from the right. They carry their mirrors prominently, and they hold their mirrors facing the couple. The mirror-bearers form a half-circle around the couple, leaving open the side that the guests are on. Those bearers who hold small mirrors should walk with their mirrors raised to head level in the hope that Lauren and Lee will soon see their faces. If possible, they should continue to hold their mirrors at the same height when they reach their places and for the remainder of the ceremony. Those participants holding large mirrors might rest their mirrors on the ground when they reach their places but they should tilt them so that Lauren and Lee can see their whole bodies and heads when they turn toward the mirrors.

The officiant joins the line of mirror-bearers by standing beside the last mirror-bearer on one side or the other of the semi-circle. Optionally, a mirror-bearer can hand the officiant an extra mirror and the officiant can hold this mirror for the remainder of the ceremony.

Officiant: "Lauren and Lee, never forget how close you are today. You'll have to give to each other thousands more times to continue your communion. You might recognize the need to give every time you remember your closeness here at your wedding. Look in these mirrors at the image of your goal. Record this image in your two memories." ²

Lauren and Lee turn their backs to the guests. ³ They face the mirror-bearers who were directly behind them. They resume touching.

Officiant: "Lauren and Lee, now that you have come together in marriage, we encircle you for another reason: to reflect your union back to you in case you ever doubt that you should be married. ⁴ We reflect your marriage to intensify its presence in case someday you feel like it's merely a wisp of your imaginations, or in case someday you feel that your marriage should be just a wisp, a silly plan you conceived some dreamy afternoon."

Mirror-bearer A: "We don't have the resources to surround your union more densely with mirrors. We only have the meager powers any humans have to encourage each other. Most of us have small mirrors. Our biggest mirrors are hard to support, and they require two people."

Mirror-bearer B: "There are holes between our mirrors. You should doubt the value of your marriage some days. You decided freely to come together, and free people should question their decisions."

Mirror-bearer C: "And you should doubt your love some days. If love was a necessary response to meeting and knowing Lauren, we would all fall in love with her. No feeling is necessary. Every feeling, every time it's felt, is born anew inside one human soul, one soul that perceives the world a little differently from others, and quite separately from them. Every time a person feels we might say she expresses her madness."

Mirror-bearer D: "Like anyone's love, your love might be called a beautiful madness, a beautiful flight of fancy that the people surrounding you don't affirm, don't reflect."

Mirror-bearer E: "But your love is no crazier than anyone else's love, and your marriage is no more questionable than anyone else's."

Mirror-bearer F: "People are encouraged over the years they grow up to get married one day, and as their adult years pass they might be nagged to get married – to someone of the opposite sex. They're so often regaled with stories of weddings and marriages between partners of opposite sexes. Opposite-sex marriages are so easily recognized, so plentifully reflected. When opposite-sex partners question the value of their marriage, so many people encourage them to heal their troubles and remain married, it seems like their marriage is protected by a wall of mirrors."

Mirror-bearer G: "And people hear about love all their lives. Love is wished for in passing, love is portrayed as if it were one thing instead of an infinite variety of feelings and an infinite variety of relationships. Love is described only vaguely, but it's said to occur between a man and a woman."

Mirror-bearer H: "So we encircle you today to recognize your love and your union. We see you there so close together, and we don't think you're any crazier than anyone else to fall in love and commit to living the rest of your lives together."

Mirror-bearer I: "We recognize your marriage." Pause. "We approve of your marriage." Pause. "We hope to encourage your marriage whenever you doubt it."

Mirror-bearer J: "So today we reflect your love and your union back to you. You see your separate selves so close together in these mirrors. Some neighborhoods, some whole states you'll pass through, will refuse to reflect your marriage. ⁵ Some people deliberately and some of them through neglect will make you think your marriage is crazy."

Mirror-bearer K: "It's true that every love is new, that no love is precisely reflected by any other, that any love could look crazy to anyone outside it. It's true. It's good to test your commitment to your choice – a lucky thing, because you will be tested more than many couples just because you're both women."

Mirror-bearer L: "Today we give you one resource for the days you doubt your marriage." Slowly, deliberately says the rest. "Remember that we all reflect your union. Remember that we recognize your marriage. Remember that we affirm your love."

Mirror-bearer M: "Within this circle, your love is more than the standard – it is all that is. When you need the space surrounding you to affirm your own sanity and the value of your marriage, remember this."

Brief pause. Then Mirror-bearer N breaks the circle and walks up to Lauren and Lee, carrying her/his mirror and accompanied by an assistant if necessary. The mirror-bearers on either side of N fill in the space s/he left.

Mirror-bearer N: "Please take this mirror and keep it in the home you share. When the surrounding world makes you feel alien and alone, stand close together before the mirror. See that your union is a real thing that takes up space in the world. Remember that your marriage is recognized by a tight crowd of family and friends."

Lauren and Lee accept the mirror.

[This is the best time to make a legally binding Canadian exchange. The officiant should introduce it with, "And now it's time to make this marriage legal!"]

Officiant: "And now it's time to celebrate this marriage. ⁶ Please, everyone join me in congratulating Lee and Lauren!"

The guests cheer. Lauren and Lee might hug and kiss. Music begins. For one or two songs people dance simply, with spontaneous movements, wherever they find room. A few people lead and encourage the dancing. A line of mirror-bearers holding small mirrors might wind their way around Lauren and Lee, dancing. Some mirror-bearers take their mirrors out of harm's way: particularly fragile mirrors, large mirrors, and the mirror that was presented to the couple should all be moved. The mirror-bearers return to the celebration.


How to perform this ceremony Items
To perform this wedding you will need two wedding rings. These need not be traditional gold bands or any expensive rings with unsavory origins. I recommend that you make or buy rings whose designs you find expressive of love, marriage, or union. The rings can be made of materials that are likely to last the rest of your married lives, but they don't have to be. You might retire and replace your rings every so often – every anniversary if your rings are made of thread or beads. This would be a good way for you and your partner to mark the passing of time in your marriage. If you do intend to buy rings made of gold, please read http://www.nodirtygold.org/, and if you intend to buy diamond rings, please read http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/sierra_leone/conflict_diamonds.html/. One company that sells socially and environmentally pristine, albeit somewhat expensive, wedding rings is http://www.greenkarat.com/.

This ceremony also requires a table and you might choose to add two chairs. It requires a cup or bowl containing a few sips of soup, preferably a thick soup containing chunks of vegetables, meat, or beans, and a plate holding a small piece of cake, perhaps wedding cake. Finally, the mirror ceremony requires six to fifteen or more mirrors, preferably in a variety of sizes, styles, and shapes.

Participants
Only the mirror ceremony requires participants other than you and your officiant. Ideally 15 or more "mirror-bearers" will hold mirrors for this part of your wedding. Those holding large mirrors might be accompanied by assistants. 15 mirror-bearers are each assigned one speaking line. If you prefer, you can circulate the lines written for the 15 mirror-bearers among as few as three people. But do assign at least six people to hold mirrors – some can be silent if you like.


¹ The wedding can end here. If the partners choose to end the wedding, they should cue music and encourage all their guests to dance. Back to text

² If the mirror ceremony is used without the rest of the wedding, the officiant should skip this speech. Back to text

³ Both partners should be careful to remember this movement, because they won't be holding their scripts. Back to text

⁴ If the mirror ceremony is used without the rest of the wedding, this line should read, "Lauren and Lee, now that you have come together in marriage, we encircle you to reflect your union back to you in case you ever doubt that you should be married." Back to text

⁵ "Provinces" or "countries" are acceptable substitutions for "states." Back to text

⁶ If a Canadian legal exchange preceded this line, the officiant should replace, "And now it's time to celebrate this marriage" with "Let's celebrate this marriage!" Back to text


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Copyright 2008 Kelly Fine