On assembling the informal wedding committee and aquiring a figurehead

So we’ve been dealing with the weirdness of asking all of our friends to do all sorts of things and we hit on the big one. Who is actually going to perform the ceremony? We’re getting married in the backyard. No church. I have a friend who is a county attorney, and I know she has ideas of good judges (well, one judge, a friend of hers) to perform the ceremony, but it just feels a little impersonal to me. These judges are her friends, not mine. I want a friend to do it. And we have just the guy.

This guy, we’ll call him the Banker, has worked with the Boy in the past. He’s at another bank now, in another state. He’s tall and compelling. Funny. He seems quite fond of the Boy, sharing the Boy’s marathon wins (yeah, I said it. Wins. Third place is a win) on the group discussion board for the various sports betting operations they are currently operating (these are large-scale betting operations that amuse me to no end). We thought it would be perfect if the Banker would be willing to officiate at our wedding.

A short, traditional ceremony, with the Banker taking a little time to give us some honest advice from his years of marriage. No unity candles, special readings, elaborate braiding of our hair or large chains of roses linking us together for eight weeks.

So first things first. I set off to research how this could be done. I live in Minneapolis. Suffice to say, it’s not as easy as I thought and it turns out I have strong feelings on the matter. While being lectured by a long suffering county clerk about those “internet ordination scams” I got really angry. As far as I’m concerned, the point of the wedding ceremony is the vows that the Boy and I will make to each other. That’s what makes us married. I could care less about the credentials of the other guy standing up there with us. And doesn’t it mean more that we have a friend do it instead of a stranger?

No matter. I got the details. Made detailed lists of what needs to be done at what website in what order and how much it will cost, so that our dear friend the Banker can come and preside over our wedding.

So the other night, in bed, after we weeded through the guest list, yet again, we worked on how the Boy was going to pose the question to the Banker. It’s a weird question, not the least because it’ll be the second time in less than a year that the Boy will say to another person “Will you marry me.”

We played a game we like to play a lot. Mostly on long car trips to divert us. The pretend phone call. It goes like this:,

“Ring ring” That’s me, playing the telephone
“Hello? Hello?” That’s the boy playing the Banker.
“Hey Banker, it’s Dan” (The Boy is actually Dan. To make it more confusing, this is actually me playing the Boy.)
“Dan! Where’s my pool money” Banker won the football pool last week or the week before. I saw that his payment is still sitting on our kitchen table. This is a valid question.
“It’s in the mail, should be there any day now.” Awkward pause.
“So, Dan, what have you been up to?”
After that the conversation peters off. The forward motion to ask the Banker peters off. We are focused on feeding the elephant some nice catering menus…. and a musician.

….One week later….
As a follow up to the post I began last week (above) and never posted…. The Boy asked the Banker today if he would marry us. We are going to make a nice little three-some.

As expected, the Banker was unsure what we were actually asking. I wasn’t there. I was at home, the Boy at work. They were talking on the phone as the Banker lives in Omaha.
Also as excepted, the detailed notes I had provided offered very little assistance (based on the second hand account I got) for the boy to explain to the Banker what we were asking. But they managed to muddle through it, these two old friends. The Boy managed to ask his old friend if he would lug himself all the way to Minneapolis and stand up with us and try to give us a little insight to send us along the right path. I think we’re going to get a good send-off. We now have a good figurehead for this backyard shindig of ours.

And as a follow up. We were GIDDY! This was the first wedding decision that we’d made and came through that we were both dancing around about. We wanted a friend to do the ceremony. I wanted this friend of the Boy's. One with a personal relationship and some experience under his belt.

And, as expected, the Boy and the Banker have picked up this proverbial ball and are running with it. There have been emails all evening. The ordination is official (thank you Universal Life Church). We are now to call the Banker "Reverend Anderson." The Boy wants to get ordained too. Are there tax benefits to this? There will be for sure some rocking cocktail party conversation in store for Reverend Anderson.

All is good here. We’re happy to be making the wedding we want!