"Wow Vows" in Toronto

No, J and I didn't get married. Instead, we were up in Toronto for my younger brother's wedding, Cwell and his wife Melinh. It was months in the making, and it went into a kinetic frenzy just days, even hours (MINUTES!), before the actual event ... and it occurred just a few days after we moved from Grinnell to California. It didn't help when the movers were late in arriving, but we unpacked whatever we could and before we knew it we had to leave again. We just got back a few days ago and we're back to unpacking; it's not home yet, but it's pretty close. But before we left, J and I helped out with Cwell's vows and wedding script. It was pretty hilarious at times poking fun at each other and acting out what we would say. It was also odd considering that as cultural critics we would generally criticize the commodification of marriage. But my brother needed my help and we were more than happy to help out. On a personal note, I was getting all the more anxious because I was the officiant for the ceremony. I am not an official officiant designated by any church or state agency. Cwell and Melinh asked me to do it, and I initially said no because it wouldn't be official. But they were already married for several years and that this ceremony was really to make it "official" in their families' eyes. Everyone knew they were married, but it's the symbolism that was informing their decision to have the ceremony in the first place. So they were simply playing a role and that I should see the officiant as another role to play, a glorified emcee. I was then persuaded ... but I still resisted at the thought till the last day! So for several days Cwell and I worked on a wedding script, scouring the internet for examples, themes, and words, and agreeing upon something that could work. By the end, it was out of control laughter; we were adding the silliest and most inappropriate lines to the script. Of course we cut out those lines, but we needed a very good laugh, the kind that siblings share together. We gave it to J for her final approval, and that was another moment of hilarity as her careful eye scrutinized grammatical errors, subject-verb agreement, voice, etc. etc. Yeah it was fun.

On the day of the wedding, it was a beautiful ceremony with lots of laughs, tears, drinking, eating, and dancing; it is a celebration. Afterwards, J and I were able to spend a few days in Toronto without the eyes from my family. What we needed was simply time away to ourselves and that's what we got.

Speaking of commodification, the biggest expense in the marriage was the video/photography crew. HUGELY EXPENSIVE! It was a lot more than I had ever imagined, but their job was to "capture the moment" so here it is:

melinh + cwell's sde // toronto from stillmotion on Vimeo.