H— playing original intro and outro

Intro /Outro

Song #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiYiiIrq_8w (Cloud Cult)

Song #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-cUdmdWgU&list=RDc_-cUdmdWgU (Sufjan)

Ceremony going to be in the backyard, rain plan is in the living room

2 readings to be ready by Chris and J—. TK sent one. KP to send other.

PROCESSION

M—/D—

S— / L—

C—/M—

T— /B—

M—/J—

***Tim / Kevin***

GREETINGS

We are here today, as Kevin and Tim’s families and friends, to celebrate their love and life together and to witness as they join their lives together and make a new one. Each one of you here today represents one of the many disparate strands of their independent and shared history that, when woven together, create the rich tapestry of their lives. It is in this moment that we are all coming together in support of their new life together, bringing with us the love we all share for them.

The people gathered here in this room; as well as those family members and friends who have loved and supported the couple over the years but could not be here today, make up their shared community. We are the roots of their new family tree and the soil that has enriched their lives. Each of us, by our presence here today is being called upon to uphold them in honoring and loving each other, to celebrate with them and to help them forge this beginning. We must remember to stand beside them, offer them our love and support, encourage them with our kindness and loving hearts and honor this partnership in which they are to be joined today.

This moment is made significant by our gathering here today. We are affirming Tim and Kevin’s love and commitment to each other and ourselves committing to support them as they begin this life together as a married couple.

READING: LETTER FROM STEINBECK TO HIS SON

To begin, I would like to call Chris Kuhn up share a reading Tim and Kevin selected for today: a letter from John Steinbeck in response to his son upon news that his son would like to bring his first love home.

New York

November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and, of course, Elaine will from hers.

First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Dad

LOVE STORY

There are things in life we all grow so accustomed to that we forget we ever lived without them. Over the course of a lifetime, it is important to pause and take note of how things used to be — to go back to the beginning and trace the paths that brought everything to where it is today.

Before we step forward into thinking about the life that lies before Tim and Kevin today, let’s revisit the moments of good fortune and hard work that brought them before all of us today.

Tim and Kevin’s marriage did not start today. As many of you may know, Tim and Kevin were brought together by their shared values and desire to meet others who were just as eager to fight for what is right. They met at an environmental activism conference 8 years ago in Washington, D.C., which focused on building community where you are and to learn how to fight for a more just and verdant world.

They met briefly during the event, but exchanged numbers before parting ways. It is then not surprising that they agreed to meet up in Fredrick when Kevin was home on break from his college in St. Mary’s City.

Tim’s journal at the time documented his thoughts after their first date, “I had the best first date ever yesterday. Kevin is so good. We can talk about anything, and I feel so incredibly comfortable around him. I like him.

I like him.

I like him.

I like him.

I’ve truly stumbled onto something grand.”

Since that day, Kevin and Tim were committed to have each other despite circumstances that to kept them apart. They spent the next four years becoming closer through nightly phone calls and weekend visits, though they were separated by more than 120 miles. They saw each other make their way through college. They encouraged each other to explore different aspects of themselves — from exploring new groups of friends to experimenting with different career paths — and helping each determine the kind of life he wanted to live.

When they both finally graduated, they joyously moved in together in Baltimore only to be faced with an opportunity for something new. Tim was offered a position at the Discovery Channel that would require him to work evenings and travel to Silver Spring every evening while Kevin remained in Baltimore working during the day. Though they lived in the same house, they effectively were living in different time zones. Upon taking the job, they got engaged as a testament to their commitment to each other, to publicly declare that, no matter what challenges faced them in the years ahead, they would emerge from them intact.

Kevin and Tim had spent many years determined to maintain their relationship, even as their lives shifted and changed around them. They continued to challenge each other to go farther and farther while offering the support they needed to meet the goal set before them. In these years, their lives have taken many forms. They’ve uprooted and moved to DC. They each changed jobs, again and again and again. Tim returned to school and launched a satellite into space, while Kevin began to successfully climb up the company ladder. They helped move each other’s family members throughout the county. They created a thriving and deep community throughout DC and Maryland. As every day passed, they’ve honed what it means to partner in a life that is constantly shifting.

Today, they are reaffirming that commitment, and we will watch them promise to see every new change, adversity and adventure through together. For if you fight for it, nothing good gets away.

THOUGHTS ON THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE

Tim and Kevin will mark this day each year as an important moment in their story. And it’s fitting that the month of June is full of other anniversaries too—moments in history that paved the way for our two grooms to exchange vows before you today, and ultimately, to savor the joys and rights that marriage confers.

In June 1969, queer patrons at the Stonewall Inn sparked the modern LGBT movement with an uprising, responding to raids and harassment with a simple demand: dignity. With every June that followed, growing numbers took to the streets to echo this call, forging the path for visibility in other more innocuous places, too, like the office or the classroom.

This year, we also marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court victory in Loving v. Virginia, a decision which legalized interracial marriage in America. It was only through determination and courage that this right was secured across the country.

We also honor the 4th anniversary of the striking down of the Defense of Marriage Act this month as well, which guaranteed to right for men and women to marry regardless of the gender of their love.

The bond of love deserves respect and protection, regardless of differences like race, class, or gender. These victories brought our country closer to making good on the promise of equality. In that spirit, we also acknowledge that the opportunity to marry cannot be taken for granted, and we celebrate the sacrifices that generations of couples went through to help bring us here.

For as the Supreme Court confirmed almost 4 years ago, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were. …marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death.”

READING: ON MARRIAGE

I would now like to invite Julian to share the second reading Kevin and Tim selected for today: On Marriage by Kahili Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Marriage Address-B— to do

Today is a celebration. A celebration of love, of commitment, of friendship, of family, and of two people who have found home in each other.

Marriage is a conversation taking place over decades. It is the pursuit to truly and fully know another person and to open yourself up to that person to truly and fully be known by them. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were, a team to take on each other’s struggles and celebrate each other’s successes and growth. It is not an act of merging or surrendering, but a continual act of opening of your heart to another person and co-creating a life together as partners.

Kevin and Tim have not only grown up together; they have grown with each other. As true partners, they revel in seeing each other’s dreams fulfilled and in the opportunity to stand by one another in the pursuit of those dreams. They turn to each other as confidants and collaborators and offer strength and balance when facing challenges. They both encouraged the other to pursue their own paths, encouraging each other to take risks and pursue new job opportunities, further their education and take on new hobbies, but more importantly to build the kind of lives they wanted with each other.

Tim and Kevin’s life together has looked so different over the their 8 years together. In many ways, they have already already seen what so many versions of their life could be. This willingness to consistently support the other as the other fully reshapes his life again and again is what will form the foundation of their new lives together as a married couple. Kevin and Tim, through your life together, you have loved each other through phone calls and long drives, through building new families and moving, through new jobs and hard jobs, through both time and space.

And before you share your vows, I would like to offer some reflections on from Union by Robert Fulghum.

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.

For after today you shall say to the world –

This is my husband.

VOWS/I DOs AND RING EXCHANGE-KP to do (TK + KP done)

Kevin and Tim, you have made a very serious and important decision in choosing to marry each other today. Today is the public affirmation and acknowledgment of all that you are to each other. Seemingly your relationship will be as it has always been, yet there is a power in the spoken commitment you make today. May that power bring you all the warmth and closeness, security and comfort, joy and happiness we all offer you today.

Traditionally, the passage to the status of a married couple is marked by the exchange of rings. These rings are a symbol of the unbroken circle of love. Love freely given has no beginning and no end, no giver and no receiver for each is the giver and each is the receiver. May these rings always remind you of the vows you have taken, and may they always carry the positive intentions, support, and love provided by those here today.

[Kevin shares vows]

You have made these commitments to Tim; do you promise to do your very best to uphold these promises?

[Tim shares vows]

You have made these commitments to Kevin; do you promise to do your very best to uphold these promises?

CLOSING/PRONOUNCEMENT

Tim and Kevin, you came here today, in the presence of family and friends to express your love for and commitment to each other. Today, you start a new chapter in your lives together as a married couple. In the days and years to come, may you remember the feeling that you have right now. May you remember the warmth and support of all of us gathered here today. May you remember the closeness and love you feel for each other right now. For you have truly stumbled onto something grand.

And before we go, I would like to personally congratulate you two. I am honored and humbled to be here today to lead such an important moment in your lives and, on behalf of everyone here, I wish you all the greatest happiness, growth, and beauty in your lives together. I couldn’t be more excited for you.

So without any further ado, by the power vested in me by the state of Maryland, I now pronounce you married!!

(Kiss time!)