The Hoopla

The real reason we gathered on this day.

It might be a stretch to say we had a wedding so we could have a hoopla, but not much of one. We had lawn games, an open bar with some of our favorite beer, and a pig roast for dinner. (OK, it wouldn't be much of a stretch either to say we had a wedding so we could have a pig roast.) Since it was something of a whirlwind of pictures, friends, family, beer, and food, I don't really remember enough of the events to relate them in a blog post. Instead, I'll share some of the amazing toasts that were given and a bunch of pictures, and invite all of you to share any stories you might have in the comments.

Toasts:

Hello everyone!  I’m Michelle, one of the bridesmaids.  I would like to thank everyone for being here today…  Josh and Carissa’s wedding day has been wonderful thus far and I’m so happy we are all here to share it with them.

I met Josh and Carissa when we were all in college at Saint Michael’s and even though I am certain I met them individually, I do not actually think I have any memories where they weren’t a couple.  For the whole time I’ve known Josh and Rissa, they have been a team.

It was like Josh and Rissa were the really important corner pieces of a puzzle.  Once they found their way to each other, everything else just fell into place.  And we’re all here today to celebrate that partnership that’s even older than my college degree, which is unfortunately getting up there in age itself.  When I asked them each what they loved about the other, Josh said that he loves how she defines herself.  He said, “Most people draw how they define themselves from all the pre-fab identities of our society.  Rissa defines herself completely on her own terms.”  Which I thought was so lovely… and when I asked Rissa what she loves the most about Josh, she replied with, “He makes me and puts up with my decorating style.”  Which I feel like does a really great job summing up why they are so fantastic together.

So on your wedding day, my friends, I would like to offer up some wishes I have for the two of you as you continue on your life’s journey together.

1. May you always be adventurous while cooking - but never so much so that you need the fire extinguisher.
2. May you always have the chance to get outdoors enough to be able to see the stars and then go make smores around the campfire.
3. May you always be ready for the mosh pit together, but never the ER afterwards.
4. May your love of literature and learning always be something you share with each other.
5. May your love of nerdy things never waver - I hope you always have new blogs that are as epic as The Muppets Take Ulysses.
6. May you always compromise for each other.  Rissa watches hockey because you, Josh, love hockey… She does not love hockey, but is there anyway and that’s beautiful.
7. May your wanderlust always bring you on fantastic trips* - but always make sure to come home to where your friends and family are… because we all love you.
8. May you always find room on your bookshelves for just one more book… even though you know you shouldn’t.
9. May you always take care of each other, like Josh did after Rissa’s surgery - filled with a calming demeanor, thoughtfulness, and the desire to see the other comfortable and happy.
10. And last but certainly not least, may you someday soon find your dream home - it will probably be 65% kitchen, 30% library, and 5% rest of house.  Or better yet, get a gigantic place with a greenhouse and a barn that you can convert into a brewery!  Just think my, I mean your very own tap room!

I love you both very much and am so happy for you two… If everyone could raise their glasses, to Josh and Carissa.

May you never lie, steal, cheat, or drink.

But if you must lie, lie in each other’s arms.

If you must steal, steal each other’s kisses.

If you must cheat, cheat death.

And if you must drink, drink with us, your friends.

Cheers.

*Okay, so I am the emotional one in our group of friends - Besides Drew, of course - and I promised that I was going to try not to cry, but if I do, here it is…

Andy Frechette: For those of you not familiar with the South Lewiston Little League tee-ball scene, I am Andy Frechette.  Josh and I were tee-ball teammates, playing for Worden Realty, in those beautiful powder blue uniforms.  Didn't really seem like a big deal at the time, but it turns out it would be the first of many meetings. 

In the third grade, my school, Holy Cross, had a pen pal program with McMahon School.  As luck would have it, I was paired with my former teammate.  Now, as some of you might already know, but Josh likes to write things.  (Pause for uproar.)  I am not sure what my classmates were getting for correspondence, but I recall getting some fairly lengthy and involved letters.  All I could really do in return was send back pictures of Shamu that I had drawn. 

At the end of the year, our schools got together so that we could meet our pen pals.  I challenged Josh to a game of basketball.  At the time, I was unaware that no private school kid should ever challenge a public school kid to a game of basketball.  I received the trashing of a lifetime that day.  I also learned that for a boy of his size, Josh was deceptively quick. 

In the seventh grade, Josh and I were in the same home room.  Even though it was 1992, Josh was still sporting a full-on mullet: spiked in the front, long in the back, lines shave into the side.  In spite of this unfortunate choice, Josh and I became fast friends and were pretty much inseparable for the next six years.

Like most young teenagers, Josh and I tried to get into some trouble.  This was impossible, because Mr. and Mrs. Cook always understood.  It really was infuriating at times.  (Yes, in spite of the fact that I am thirty-four years old, they are still Mr. and Mrs. Cook.  Calling them Ray and Beth would be like calling my mom Kathy.)  Aside from their unwillingness to get angry with us, they did a wonderful job raising Josh and, on a great many occasions, raising me as well.  Please raise your glasses to them.

And things continued from then, through food, lawn games, dancing, and beer until a shuttle bus arrived to take us all home.

Yep. First dance. That's how we roll.

Doughnut. Tower. Let me say that again. Doughnut. Tower

Yes. That would be paper flowers and a centerpiece featuring Ulysses.

This is how you Hoopla.

This is also how you Hoopla.

Hoop. La.

Josh and Rissa's Wedding and Hoopla Part 1: The Ceremony: You know, the “Wedding” part of “Wedding and Hoopla.”

This is what they call a "formal picture."

On Sunday June 22nd, 2014 at the Codman Estate in Lincoln, MA, Riss and I celebrated our relationship with friends and family. Unfortunately not everyone could make it, so I've recreated, as best as possible the course of the day here. We'll get all the sappy stuff out in this first post and all the hoopla in the next.

Our friend Alyson (who earned a Master's from the Divinity School at Harvard, making her, technically a “Master of Divinity,”) was our officiant. Our friends Drew and Shannon were the readers. Not pictured, the frog in the reflecting pool who croaked with an almost unnerving sense of timing and the absolutely perfect breeze.

Alyson's Remarks

Mastering Divinity like He-Man Mastered the Universe

A very, serious occasion

This is how you "Afternoon Beverage."

We live in an interesting time for marriages. We live in a time where the definition and purpose of marriage is hotly debated and rapidly changing – we can turn on C-SPAN and see politicians debating the very essence of marriage, which they are coming to realize is not derived from the gender of its participants, but their commitment to one another.

Ceremonies are changing too. We’ve learned that weddings can be as meaningful in a beautiful grove, surrounded by nature and sanctioned by community, as they can be in a church, sanctioned by God.

But one type of marriage has been left out of this debate. There is still one take on marriage that people don’t know quite what to do with, and I want to stand up for it today – I want to stand up for the overdue marriage.

I first met Josh and Rissa ten years ago, and at that time they had been dating for four years. So, by some people’s standards, that means they should have gotten married two years before I met them, a decade ago. That is a long time. That is enough time for the question to shift from “Why aren’t you getting married?” to, “What’s the point, at this point?”

But what a beautiful thing to stand here today and celebrate a history of fourteen years of finely aged love and commitment. My favorite book, Middlemarch, is full of ill-fated marriages. But there is one moment where Dr. Lydgate, stuck in a marriage with a vain and immature woman he chose too quickly, realizes what marriage could be. Eliot writes, “He was beginning now to imagine how two creatures who loved each other, and had a stock of thoughts in common, might laugh over their shabby furniture, and their calculations about how far they could afford butter and eggs.”

That sounds like Josh and Rissa to me.

Of course, the danger of marrying late is that the blood may have cooled – is there any passion left? But here again, I would argue that an early marriage poses a greater danger. Margaret Fuller wrote about a newlywed couple she knew whose joy in coupledom seems to have deflated at the onset of matrimony. She wondered: “Is it that whatever seems complete sinks into the finite?” For many hopeful couples, once the frontier of marriage is reached, all new horizons seem to fade.

Ambiance. There was also ambiance.

This will not happen to Josh and Rissa. They have never let life bore them, and they are not getting married because they are bored. One thing I admire about Josh and Rissa is that they have incredible integrity about following their ludicrous dreams. They both stubbornly pursue the lifestyles they want to live – and these are not easy lifestyles. These are lifestyles that require patience, persistence, and a tolerance for shabby furniture. These traits are admirable in an individual, but even more so in a couple who each support one another in these pursuits. I have no fear that a ring on their fingers will sink their lives into the “finite” – the common stock of thoughts they share will continue to make their living room one of the most interesting salons in Somerville.

And this is why I want to stick up for the overdue marriage. It is because of the steadiness and wisdom they have built over fourteen years, that life can continue to be a beautiful risk.

Today Josh and Rissa can say simultaneously “We made it,” and “we have so much longer to enjoy it.” It is an occasion worthy of our most sacred ceremony.

Readings

Drew's 873rd wedding reading.

Drew:
from Walt Whitman's “Song of the Open Road”

I do not offer the old smooth prizes,
But offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid-up stores,
However convenient the dwellings,
You shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port,
And however calm the waters,
You shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you
You are permitted to receive it but a little while
Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before you,
The long brown path before you,
leading wherever you choose.
Say only to one another:
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Jeannette Freakin' Winterson. (Well, Shannon reading Winterson.)

Shannon
from Art and Lies by Jeanette Winterson
"What marries me to you? Is it a piece of paper? Then I am not married to you. Is it Church approval? Then I am not married to you. Is it the fact of a roof, the fact of a bed, the fact of two keys in one lock? Then I am not married to you. Is it the Eye of the Law? Then I am not married to you.

If it is the daily pleasure in your face. If it is the quickening of my spirits at your face, if it is your face I seek when I seek no other, if it is the love of you that is consent, if it is consent to be of the same mind, then let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

And love? The brazier where I burn. Extravagant, profuse, excessive, beyond bounds. Out of our risk comes our safety, not the small sad life that will cling to anything because it has nothing. You are not a raft. I am not a sailor. You are not weak. I am more than a strong arm. I want to love you well, not to lose you in children and objects. I want to love you well, but to love you well I shall have to be in love with more than love. I shall have to find in myself the emotional extravagance that fits me to stay in one place."

Alyson: For their vows, Rissa and Josh have adapted a passage from Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov.

 

Josh: Whenever I start thinking of my love, I am in the habit of immediately drawing radii from my love – from my heart, from the tender nucleus of a personal matter – to remote points of the universe.

Adapted Nabokov

Rissa: Something impels me to measure the consciousness of my love against such unimaginable things as the behavior of nebulae, the unknowledgeable beyond the unknown, the distance into distance, the interpenetrations of space and the small act of our smiles together.

Josh: When that slow-motion, silent explosion of love takes place in me, unfolding its melting fringes and overwhelming me with the sense of something much vaster, much more enduring and powerful than the accumulation of matter or energy in any imaginable cosmos, then my mind cannot but pinch itself to see if it is really awake.

Rissa: I have to make a rapid inventory of the universe, just as someone in a dream tries to condone the absurdity of her position by making sure she is dreaming.

Josh:Both dreaming and waking people have long tried to see the time and space of our enduring universe in metaphors of the smallest objects we can hold, like a grain of rice, a dust of stone, or a speck of sand.

Rissa: I have to make a rapid inventory of the universe, just as someone in a dream tries to condone the absurdity of her position by making sure she is dreaming.

It bears repeating: Adapted Nabokov

Josh: After today, instead of looking in old metaphors and tiny things, I vow to see the time and space of our enduring universe in Rissa.

Alyson: Tom Robbins says this about love, in his novel Still Life with Woodpecker.

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

Josh, take this ring from Beverly, and put it on Rissa’s left hand. Do you promise to aid and abet the ultimate outlaw and to love Rissa with no strings attached and for free?

Josh: Yes.

Rissa, take this ring from Beth and put it on Josh’s left hand. Do you promise to aid and abet the ultimate outlaw and to love Josh with no strings attached and for free?

Rissa: Yes.

Alyson: “By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce Joshua Douglas Cook and Carissa Michelena Leal, married. You may now kiss each other.”

Classy

Classier

Artisanal Sock Level Classy

Classiest

The Cavalry.