If you are able, please rise for the arrival of the bride.
Welcome to the wedding ceremony, you may be seated.
We ask for your full attention throughout this ceremony (don't worry, it will be brief, or as brief as it can be when they entrusted me to write the script): please silence and put away your phones. Professional photos will be available later, so you are free to enjoy the ceremony without capturing it. Please do not be the only person in these professional photos looking at your phone instead of the loved ones you are attending this wedding with <3
We are here today to marry these two, but we should start at the beginning. Maybe you can tell I'm not a priest so why am I standing here?
Traditionally an officiant is a neutral agent of the church or the law, but I am a little closer to the situation than usual. I count both Blair and Mason among my dearest friends and I have lived with them for a year and a half now, and I was a witness to the very beginning of their love story. I had already known Mason for a couple of years, lived in the same apartment complex, and made the best of the most closed and featureless stretches of the pandemic with Mason and our mutual friend (and wedding party member) Jack. In 2021, Bella (also here in the wedding party) moved in to the apartment above Jack's, and Blair entered our orbit by virtue of her and Bella's lifelong friendship.
Bella and Blair joined us for dinner in the parking lot of Canlis, Seattle's only fine dining institution, which was across the street from the apartment complex where Mason and I both lived. The normal rules of society had been suspended sufficiently that we did not have to wear jackets to this famously traditional institution, and also they served us Texas barbecue in their parking lot. (That's what a Michelin star will get you these days am I right.) I already knew Mason to be reliable, honest, loyal (etc, etc), and quickly found Blair to be enthusiastic, thoughtful, generous (etc, etc). Our newly expanded pod opened up to accommodate new friends as the world slowly reopened along with us.
Mason and Blair will tell their own versions of their origin story later, but for now, picture Mason, Jack, and I playing a video game on Jack's couch. For dramatic purposes, picture us in silence and in a dark room, or perhaps in black and white. Bella and Blair are upstairs watching a movie, also rendered in silent gray for now.
Picture us all at a parking lot picnic table piled high with slightly too fancy barbecue, a little color starting to return to the scene, all of us in our fanciest "finally going out" outfits.
Now picture Mason and Blair at an outdoor concert, surrounded by the friends I've just mentioned and by Blair's family, and more widely by a world relearning to experience joy. You should now add a little more color, and a little music, to the image in your mind. They're listening to Lake Street Dive on the lawn of Chateau Sainte Michelle on an intermittently rainy day in October. It's evening, at or around sunset, and Mason asks Blair for curly hair care tips, and Blair suggests they exchange numbers so that they can delve appropriately deep into this mysterious art. After this fateful moment, a montage of all the things they love doing together, nights in the kitchen making shepherd's pie, visits to family near and far, a scenic mountain proposal in Greece, an equally scenic wedding in Portland.
I don't want to dwell much on the pandemic and the newfound uncertainty of the world in its wake, but I think it's remarkable what these two have already weathered together: the pace of change can feel dizzying but they've found steadiness together, and they've supported each other through significant personal growth in their hobbies, careers, friendships, time with family: all the things that bring meaning and joy, and render life in full color.
((some sort of transition here....???))
Before we begin the ceremony, I will ask a vow from the audience (another one, besides the one to silence your phones.) I will shortly ask you to express your love and support for Blair and Mason in whatever way you choose — clapping, cheering, shouting, standing up. You can think about what you would like to shout at them for a moment, I'll tell you when it's time to make some noise.
We gather to honor and support Blair and Mason's choice to be together, to affirm their commitment, and to celebrate how they have brought all of us closer together. The bonds of family and community are knit tighter by love, and we celebrate that love today. So we gather here to wish them well: may their marriage lift and strengthen them as well as us, and may we always be there for them, as we are today. We wish their burdens to be light, but we promise to share them anyway. We wish their joys to be plentiful, and we promise to multiply them by sharing those, too.
So, I'm turning it over to you for a moment before we start the festivities for some audience participation. Will all the loved ones gathered here collectively express our support to the happy couple, starting now.
Thank you. Now to the main event: Blair and Mason have repeatedly expressed to me some variation on the theme that their wedding need not be the happiest or most important day of their lives. They understand marriage to be a lifelong project, in which every day together will be an occasion to reaffirm their vows of commitment and love and support for each other. The words we witness today are important, but the steady demonstration of those words through a shared lifetime are the real substance of their vows. I encourage you both to reflect on your commitments to each other, to understand and believe in the vows you are about to exchange, not only today but every day.
This ceremony and celebration is, of course, no less cherished for not being the most important day of their lives. Today is an occasion of hope for the future. We celebrate what lies ahead, and witness vows of duty and commitment to last a lifetime. With that in mind, Mason and Blair will affirm their promises to each other for today and forever after.
Blair: Do you take Mason to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love and comfort, to honor and keep, for as long as you both shall live?
Mason: Do you take Blair to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and comfort, to honor and keep, for as long as you both shall live?
The bride and groom have prepared vows to announce their commitment to each other in the eyes of their family and community. Will you please read those vows before us now?
Blair, please read your vows.
Mason, please read your vows.
The bride and groom will now exchange rings as an enduring symbol of the vows they have just exchanged.
As you exchange rings, please repeat: with this ring, I thee wed.
Before the family and friends gathered here, in consideration of the vows made to each other for your future together, and by the authority vested in me by being Mason and Blair's best-dressed friend, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss.
Thank you for attending the ceremony. Refreshments are available behind you and through the door to the left. The bride and groom will be hosting a cocktail hour for you to mingle and congratulate the newly wedded couple.