Peter & Ellen Got Married (By Me, of All People!)

Pete and Ellen have been a couple for well over a decade now, so when he proposed to her a couple of Christmases ago, it felt both inevitable and shocking all at once. I can't remember if they asked me to emcee or if I just offered it up, but that was established soon afterwards. 

A little while after that though, they asked me if I would conduct the civil ceremony for them, and that was surprising.

It turns out that in Alberta you can apply to become a Temporary Marriage Commissioner, with a one-day appointment. I felt tremendously honoured to have been asked, so I filled in the application form, read all the documents they sent me, and took custody of Pete & Ellen's marriage license and registration paper.  Then yesterday I married my dear friends on a beautiful autumn day with about 130 friends and relations in attendance.

What a wonderful day! What an amazing experience.

The ceremony and reception was held at the Chateau Louis here in Edmonton, outdoors in a lovely gazebo and on an unseasonably warm October day. Pete had offered to tux me up for the affair, and seeing increasingly few opportunities to wear one in the future, I had gratefully accepted; this meant I was also thankful for the shade the gazebo provided.

Pete and Ellen cleverly reversed the traditional bride and groom colours because hey, this was hardly a typical wedding, and more critically, Ellen looks great in black and knows it. This is probably why she allowed her daughter and Maid of Honour Liz to make her try on a designer gown when they were supposed to be shopping for Liz's grad dress. And it was by a New York designer and hand beaded and worth thousands of dollars but was also the last one and there was something funny about one of the armpits so she got it for a steal. 

The rest of the wedding party looked great in their tuxes and dresses, especially the bridal processional in their white Snoopy sneakers.

Ellen's mum Margaret read "The Art of Marriage" by Wilferd Petersen, but when Pete's ghodaughter read "All I Know About Love" by Neil Gaiman, the emotions really began to swell. 

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I've learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It's not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it's what they mean.
Somebody's got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn't want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It's not two broken halves becoming one.
It's the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else's love, nobody else's marriage, is like yours,
and it's a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that's all I know about love.

It is a wonderful piece, and Miranda is getting married herself next year, so it may have been more impactful due to that, but when her voice caught twice during the reading, and she shook an accusatory finger at Pete, you could see the ocular humidity increasing throughout the assembly. Which I appreciated, being who I am, except that it didn't make it any easier to read what I had prepared.

I had asked the happy couple if they wanted me to say anything during the ceremony - a short message I kept erroneously referring to as a homily, but essentially a secular sermonette, if you will. Pete had grinned when I asked and said, "Well, knowing your background and eloquence - yeah, we are kind of expecting it, actually!" 

So here is what I said.

When I was a kid, I remember a series of ads for Reese’s peanut butter cups; chocolate and peanut butter would somehow, improbably get mixed together, with one person exclaiming, “Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” and the other person replying “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate!” They would then taste the combination and exclaim this is great, and the tagline was “two great tastes that taste great together.”

I had thought for years that this ad campaign, widely remembered by people of my generation  - show of hands? - meant that this tasty confection was introduced in the 1970s, but I recently learned that they actually date back to 1928, and have been a perennial best seller ever since. In terms of longevity, you might say the snack “has legs” - it has lasted a good long while.

The Reese’s success just goes to show you that you never know what combinations are going to work, right? Take Pete and Ellen, for instance…

I met Ellen shortly after she and Pete became a couple but I’ve known Pete since university days

Pete and I became friends because he was the roommate of a friend of mine, and we would meet when we ended up at their place playing our various nerdy games. Look me up later, the list is far too exahsuticve and not the point. 

We discovered a number of shared interests and appreciation for each other’s wit, and he was one of the few Alberta friends who made it out to visit Audrey and I when living in Toronto. He’s been a true friend of the family ever since.

And I immediately loved Ellen because of her forthright expressiveness, that a person with so much charm and empathy was once described as being as blunt as a mud fence. And dedicated parenting? There might be better examples of the mother bear archetype out there somewhere, but most of them tend to stay off social media and stick to the darker ends of the National Parks system and the boreal forest.

I was immensely honoured to be asked to officiate their wedding ceremony here today.

Those of you who know the happy couple are no doubt well aware of just how diametrically opposed their two households are in most ways

Nerd vs jock, bachelor vs family, a woman who loves pets vs a man rumoured to have bought one of those digital hatrchliing toys, a Tamagotchi, just so he could watch it perish.

Human interactions are notoriously complex - how do you know when a relationship has staying power, has the capacity to go the distance, or “has legs” as one might say?

I have a funny feeling that if we shot Pete & Ellen up with some sodum nambathol or other truth serum and asked them independently we might get some different answers between them, and that is fine, but as a third party, let me tell you when I knew.

My increasingly faulty memory says it was St., Paddy’s Day about nine years back - my church had a festive dinner and my daughter’s Irish Dance School was performing, so Pete, Ellen, Kai and Elizabeth joined us. After dinner, I watched restless Malachi crawl all over Pete, as a restless boy that age is wont to do, and marvelled at the fact that Pete was not taken aback by this in the slightest. Watching Pete transition into a dad-like space like that was at once jarring and reassuring. 

Other examples came later - the driving, the cheering, the math tutoring and t-short that read “Bonus Dad,” they were these tiny milestones that marked a transition from satisfied bachelor to happy father-figure and today - husband.

And conversely, we also have Ellen’s embracing some elements of a nerd culture she claims to despise, like dressing up as Rachel from Blade Runner for one of Pete’s legendary Geekquinox dinner parties. 

Truly, an impossible pairing - like peanut butter and chocolate. 

There is a continuum of weddings and this one is probably an outlier in many ways - not wide-eyed youngfolk, ready to leave home together, but two people from disparate backgrounds and interests who have improbably found love - lasting love

We can see the foundation they have spent the past decade creating together, the family that has risen so naturally in the fertile crescent created by the thin overlapping of their Venn diagrams, the clear sense of individuality that these four excellent people share paired with their immense and tangible commitment to each other and which is shared by their extended families - can I get an Amen? -  and by their many friends - do I hear a “testify!”? - 

We all know the same thing, don’t we?

It's got legs. 

The rest of the ceremony involved me diligently reading the Civil Marriage Ceremony booklet I had been sent, trying not to trip over the words (occasionally successfully), and getting Pete and Ellen to repeat the critically important affirmations and vows. No one spoke up when I asked if anyone had a reason why the wedding should not take place, and I was grateful (even though I felt moderately prepared if someone did thanks to the clear instructions provided to me by Vital Statistics).

And we signed some documents, and just like that, they were legally wed! Astonishing.

I had not sought approval for my remarks beforehand, so after the wedding I asked Ellen if they had been all right; she wrapped me in a warm embrace and said "It was just what I wanted, something light, but something personal; something funny but meaningful - thank you!"

Well, I could have just died.

I got quite a few compliments about the ceremony but the most significant came from Ellen's stepdad Bill, who is getting on in years and who sent someone over asking me to come speak with him. I walked over to his wheelchair and shook his hand, and he looked me directly in the eyes and told me in a strong voice how much he had enjoyed listening to me, then asked how long I had been doing it. 

"Doing what?" I asked.

"Been a marriage commissioner," he said. It was right around here that Ellen's sister and bridesmaid Krista told me that Bill had been director of Vital Statistics for a number of years; hired all the marriage commissioners and had officiated no small number of marriages himself.

I sputtered and thanked him for the compliment and explained that marrying folks was probably a one-time gig for me, but he suggested I do it on a regular basis, which I took as a very high compliment considering the source.

The reception went very smoothly as well -  a limited number of toasts, a hilarious FAQ session from Pete & Ellen that they fit all their acknowledgements and thanks into, and then onto the dance floor. Audrey expressed some displeasure that her table (filled with friends I have known for decades) was the very last one picked to go to the buffet, but that was really the only sub-par bit, and random and unavoidable. Honestly.

Because the happy couple had designed the day to be less of a ceremony and more of a party/ reunion, it was a hit. Everyone had a great time catching up with people - all but one of the players from my 1995 D&D campaign were in attendance and I reconnected with one of my tightest high school pals for the first time in at least half a decade - and the dance floor was never empty.

I am not one for omens and auguries, but I believe every journey feels better when it gets off to a good start. Pete and Ellen had one of the best weddings I have ever attended, and I am certain all their friends and family share my delight and joy at having been able to be a part of it, and to continue to be a part of their new life together.