This past October, two of my friends got married, in Kalamazoo, on the one sunny rooftop in a city surrounded by angry, gray rainclouds. John is an actor, Kasey an unstoppable, glitter-loving (and often glitter-covered) force of nature; they are quite possibly two of the sweetest, kindest people I know. I know they love each other, fiercely, deeply, with the kind of compassion and wry determination that moves mountains and builds forevers. I know: I saw it. I was there. To my immense surprise and honor, John and Kasey asked me marry them, a year before we all came together on that rooftop. So of course I said yes--no sane, sensible person says no to such sure madness as a wedding has to offer--and started the long year of procrastinating.
I didn't write as much as I would have liked in 2016, but of the things I did write (my third screenplay among them), John and Kasey's wedding is, I have no doubt, the best of the lot. It's certainly my favorite bit of Stuff I Wrote this year. Kasey has given me permission to post it here, for you to read, if you'd like, and I hope you will: there are things in here that I think are important for all of us to remember, whether we're married or unmarried or in love or not. Sitting and thinking and (not fast enough, not nearly) writing about John and Kasey in the weeks before their wedding, I was struck by how easy it was not to write platitudes and cliches; how utterly easily I was able to tell true things about my friends.
The ceremony went well. People seemed to like it, and several very kind and only mildly drunk wedding guests told me so. (I think. I was perhaps a bit mildly drunk as well.)
I was going to write something about being honest, and the value of emotional truth and love, especially in the world we're falling inexorably into. Instead, here's John and Kasey's Wedding, transcribed from a clean, black Moleskine. (I wrote the final version of the wedding on the train up from Chicago, with an antique-store Sheaffer fountain pen, with a thin sheen of sweat on my brow and madness in my eyes.) I hope you enjoy it, and find something for you in there as well.
I. Welcoming the Guests
Good Afternoon. Welcome, everyone, to John and Kasey's wedding. My name is Max. I'll be your officiant today. Please familiarize yourself with the emergency exits (in case I mess this wedding up horribly), and please silence your cell phones. The Processional is going to begin in just a little while. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the company of all the new family around you.
II. Processional
III. Gathering Words
(To John and Kasey:) Hey guys. Glad you could join me.
(To Guests:) We've all come together today to celebrate the marriage of Kasey Hall and John Scheibe. They'd like to thank you all for coming, but they're too busy gazing into each other's eyes, so I'm going to thank you for them. Everybody who's here today: thank you.
It's important, too, to remember those who can't be here today. The Bride would like to take a moment to remember her father. She wishes that he could be here. She wishes that he could have met the man she loves. That's what she wishes, and she knows that he's watching. And she knows that he's happy. And that's the greatest of all possible blessings.
IV. Marriage Address
This is the part where I'm meant to tell you how I know John and Kasey, but I think that's boring, and we're not really here for me right now. That's the reception: that's later. Right now, what I'll tell you is that I've known John and Kasey longer than they've known each other. I met each of them, separately, on the same stage. The same stage where John learned to be brave in the face of overwhelming fear, and where Kasey learned to shine a little brighter, and to never doubt herself. The stage where John and Kasey met, during a run of Legally Blonde. The same stage where John proposed. I've been in plays with both of them, but this is the first time the three of us have been in front of an audience together since Legally Blonde.
I hope it goes better this time.
John and Kasey are uniquely suited to marriage, each in their own way, and they compliment each other well.
John is a dreamer of unreasonable dreams--and that's a good thing. A clever filmmaker once said that, in order to make a movie, you need "a reasonable amount of unreasonability." The same could be said for any art, and there's certainly an art to marriage. You shoot a movie one scene at a time, until it's done, and you do much the same thing with a lifetime together. If you do it right, you live it one day at a time, and you always kiss the girl. Put something exciting in every act, to keep you both guessing, and remember: everything is possible.
Kasey is an accountant, and marriage is also about accountability: to each other, and to the life that you're building together. Actually...marriage is like one long fiscal year. Add his wild-eyed dreams and your focus and drive. Add unfailing support of each other. Add pancakes in bed. Add long walks in Central park in the autumn, when the leaves, like copper and cold fire on the trees, fall around you, and remind you of a little town, a long way away, where you met, and fell in love, and began. Subtract doubt, wherever you can, and debt, and you'll rid yourselves of two needless hardships. In their place, add two lives. Add love.
If you keep dreaming and loving and laughing together, without measure, you'll end up with a lifetime uniquely yours, filled with warmth and adventure and love, and so much more, because you'll have filled it together, with each other. So go and live your story. Stay and watch the closing credits, and see if there's anything after.
V. I Dos
Now, I would ask you if you'll have, hold, love, and cherish each other, but you're getting married. That stuff is pretty self-evident. So instead:
Will you, John, take Kasey to be your wife, and one and only?
Will you promise to starve, if you have to, to chase your dreams, knowing that now that you're married, they're her dreams, too, and more important than ever before? Will you promise to communicate openly and honestly, to say what you mean, and to listen to what she says in return? Will you think of Kasey always not only as your wife, but as your best friend, and to keep that friendship honest and true?
Will you, Kasey, take John to be your husband, for real, forever, no takesies-backsies?
Will you promise not to snap and snarl when the day is long, not to fight because you're tired, and to give pizza and Netflix a try instead? Will you promise to remember that some of the things he does that drive you crazy are the same things you fell in love with, all those years ago?
And will you both promise to take care of each other, but also to take care of yourselves, because there are only two links in this chain, and each depends on the other?
VI - VIII. Vows, Rings, & the Unity Box
IX. Declaration of Marriage
Alright. I think we've had enough talk for one day. By the power vested in me by five minutes on the internet, I pronounce you together for good, and in for one hell of an amazing life together.
John, kiss your wife.
It occurs to me as I write this that today is my parents' 31st wedding anniversary. It's a fitting synchronicity: I know what I know (or think that I know) about marriage from growing up with their example. Any wisdom you found above is theirs. Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.
We lost so many artists and musicians and visionaries in 2016. Alan Rickman. David Bowie. Prince. Mohamed Ali. Abe Vigoda. John Glen. Gene Wilder. But we know--John and Kasey and I, and so many other of my friends--what Shakespeare knew. We're Theatre folk. We know that life is a series of funerals and weddings, and where you end determines whether you're in a comedy or a tragedy.
Let's end 2016 with a wedding. Next year won't be easy. No year ever is, but (to borrow from Puck), "Give me your hands, if we be friends." Greet tomorrow with laughter, as an old year ends.
--Max Peterson