Wedding Memories

We appreciate the assistance of a number of people who helped make our wedding and this book possible. Dan Wolens and Jeff Slaney took photographs at the wedding ceremony and reception. Gary Wade and Paul Ries brought the flowers from The Tree House in San Jose. Amy Brownell and George Ramstad brought the cake from Cocolat in Berkeley. Gary Starkweather and Robin Myers provided production assistance for this book. Finally, we appreciate the love and support from all our family and friends who have helped to make us who we are.

Preparations

There were lists to make, people to invite, reservations to be made. And we hadn't even thought about things like music and menus yet.

There was never any doubt that we wanted to get married in Yosemite; it is one of our favorite places in the world. We enjoy the mountains and the incomparable valleys. Some of our happiest days have been spent exploring the High Sierras and Yosemite National Park combines the best of the mountains and the valleys.

							John Muir
					      from The Yosemite

We also wanted to share the mountains and our wedding celebration with our friends. We are looking forward to a long and happy life together and very much wanted our friends and family to be with us as we started our life together.

Marriage is more than just a chance to exchange rings and cut a cake together. To us, marriage means a commitment, solemnly made in front of our friends and family, to live and grow together. Our family and friends are important because it is their love and support that help keep us strong and have helped make us the people that we are.

Getting married by the minister at Yosemite meant a trip to Yosemite valley during February of 1991 for group counseling and planning. It also meant that we got to see the valley when it is relatively quiet and uncrowded.

Yosemite is large enough that different sections of the park will have very different weather. It can be cold and snowy in the valley and bright and clear in the high meadows. Or it might be foggy in the valley. But it is never boring at Yosemite.

The noble walls---sculptured into endless variety of domes and gables, spires and battlements and plain mural precipices---all atremble with the thunder tones of the falling water. The level bottom seemed to be dressed like a garden---sunny meadows here and there, and groves of pine and oak; the river of Mercy sweeping in majesty through the midst of them and flashing back the sunbeams. The great Tissiack, or Half Dome, rising at the upper end of the valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and life-like, the most impressive of all rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration, calling it back again and again from falls or meadows, or even the mountain beyond---marvelous cliffs, marvelous in sheer dizzy depth and sculpture, types of endurance. Thousands of years have they stood in the sky exposed to rain, snow, frost, earthquake, and avalanche, yet they still wear the bloom of youth.

						John Muir
		     from My First Summer in the Sierra

Schedule

November 2, 1990 - Malcolm flies to Cleveland to meet the rest of the C's. Michele doesn't realize until she gets there that Malcolm has already offered her father a St. Bernard in exchange for Michele's hand in marriage. Cal C. accepts but Michele's not so sure.

November 10, 1990 - Somehow we managed to surprise most people. We announce a Chocolate Movie party and have some of our friends over for chocolate desserts and movies about chocolate. Some of them figure it out beforehand but most people are surprised. Everyone loves the chocolate.

December, 1990 - The first of the announcements go out, encouraging everybody to get their hotel reservations and leave the weekend of October 12, 1991 open.

August, 1991 - Formal invitations go out for the celebration of the year.

Wedding

Ceremony

Dear family and friends, we are gathered today to share in a joyous and festive event, the ceremony of marriage. We have come together to celebrate with Malcolm and Michele the love they have discovered in each other and to support their commitment to one another.

When two people marry, their families are changed. The bride and groom come together to form a new family, and instead of looking to father and mother, to brother and sister, they will look first to each other. Yet the bride and groom will not leave their previous families entirely. Instead, they rely on the love and support of both families, uniting them.

Do the Slaney and the C. families give their support and blessing to this new union?

(Both families) We do.

Marriage provides a way to honor and to affirm a special joy and trust shared by two people. It offers the possibility, even the promise, of a love as is described in Corintheans.

"Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is not rude or selfish; it does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes."

Anne Morrow Lindergh wrote many things about love. We would like to share one of her writings.

(Belinda to audience)
From "Gift from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

"Love has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.

"When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music --- then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm. Then, the pattern of the dance will support and rejoice in the natural swinging of our lives between sharing and solitude; between the intimate and the abstract; between the near and the far.

"The pattern must reflect the changing tides of our lives and our emotions. When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. We should not insist on this type of permanency and duration. The only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity --- in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern."

Malcolm and Michele, today you have come to celebrate your love and to proclaim your commitment to its continuity. This marriage and your vows to one another symbolize that commitment.

This commitment is not a promise to be united in all things. Instead, marriage builds on the unity that your love provides, while allowing both growth and differentiation, just as the unity of a tree trunk supports the growth and spreading of the branches and leaves. In the words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh: "the tree is still one, and its different and separate parts contribute to one another."

Marriage is a great charge and a true challenge. You are committing yourselves to not only stand by each other for the rest of your lives but to also help your partner grow. It is challenging to understand your partner's changing needs when they are different from your own and to resolve these conflicting demands honestly and openly. Do you both commit yourselves freely, before these loved family and friends, to meet these challenges to the very best of your ability?

(Michele) We do.
(Malcolm) We do, We do, We do!

	I, Malcolm, take you, Michele, to be my wedded wife, to love and cherish, to honor and comfort, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, from this day forward, as long as we both shall live.
I, Michele, take you, Malcolm, to be my wedded husband, to love and cherish, to honor and comfort, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, from this day forward, as long as we both shall live.

May I have the rings?

Rings have long been a symbol of vows taken in marriage. These circles, with no beginning and no ending, represent your commitment to continuity--the continuity of your love which begins in trust, grows through companionship, and deepens with understanding.

(Malcolm)
Wear this ring as a sign of my love for you and my commitment to you.

(Michele)
Wear this ring as a sign of my love for you and my commitment to you.

Today, we have gathered together to witness and to celebrate the love and commitment between Malcolm and Michele. Let us all take a moment now to renew our commitments to one another: the commitment to grow together and to love one another.

In First Corintheans, we are told:

"There are three things that last: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love."

Let us include all three of these things in our relationships with one another: let us have faith in one another; let us have hope for our future together; and let us love one another.

Let us pray.

We give thanks to you, God, as we celebrate another special event of life. We thank you for our family and friends and the high moments of their lives and of ours. We thank you for the relationships which we establish as we move through life, for the ways in which they sustain, strengthen, and bless us.

We call for your special blessing upon Malcolm and Michele, whom we bless in your name. Help them to continue to learn to love as they grow in their relationship with each other and with you. Grant them a special quality of happiness as they establish a new home, build a new family, and support each other. Enable them to have a home that is a place of blessing and of peace.

We seek your love and grace for all who are witnesses of this holy marriage. May all who share the marriage covenant be renewed as they consider this union. May each of us grow closer to you as we consider your gifts to us and the convenant we share with you. Help us to remain a community which encourages commitment to one another.

Amen

Michele and Malcolm have publicly vowed their commitment to each other. Malcolm and Michele, you are now husband and wife, wife and husband. May you continue to give each other joy as you do at this moment

(Kiss)

Recessional: Jeremiah Clarke, The Prince of Denmark's March

Reception

It takes years to marry completely two hearts, even of the most loving and well-assorted. A happy wedlock is a long falling in love... The golden marriage is a part of love which the bridal day knows nothing of.

						Theodore Parker

Such a large and sweet fruit is a complete marriage that it needs a long summer to ripen in, and then a long winter to mellow and season it. But a real, happy marriage of love and judgement between a noble man and woman is one of the things so very handsome that if the sun were, as the Greek poets fabled, a god, he might stop the world and hold it still now and then in order to look all day long on some example thereof, and feast his eyes on such a spectacle.

						Theodore Parker

Really I began the day
Not with a man's wish: "May this day be different";
But with a bird's wish: "May this day
Be the same day, the day of my life."

						Randall Jarrell,
			from A Man Meets a Woman in the Street

In the marriage ceremony, that moment of falling in love is replaced by the arduous drama of staying in love, the words "in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part" set love in the temporal context in which it achieves its meaning. As time begins to elapse, one begins to love the other because they have shared the same experience. . . . Selves may not intertwine; but lives do, and shared memory becomes as much of a bond as the bond of the flesh.

						Michael Ignatieff,
			     from Lodged in the Heart and Memory

Next comes the very interesting custom of substituting a mock bride for the real one. Thus amongst the Beni-Amer, the groom and his friends are often mocked when they come to take the bride, her people substituting a false bride for the true one. The substitute is carefully disguised and allows herself to be taken and at last when the procession is well outside the village, she reveals herself and runs back laughing.

						Ernest Crawley
	  from The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage
	   and of Primitive Though in Its Bearing on Marriage

The commonest of all marriage ceremonies of union is eating and drinking together. . . . In Halmahera and Borneo a proposal is made by offering betel to the girl. She shows her acceptance by receiving it. In Samoa the suitor offers her a basket of bread-fruit; or he asks her parents for her hand. If they are friendly and eat with him, his addresses are sure to be favourably received. In Switzerland, if a youth and a girl fall in love, on the Easter Monday after, they publicly drink together in order to inform the world at large of their love and to warn off others who might wish to approach the girl. . . . In the Duke of York Islands a cocoanut is broken over the heads of the pair and its milk poured over them.

						Ernes Crawley,
	  from The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primative Marriage
	  and of Primitive Thought in Its Bearing on Marriage

From: wegeng
Subject: A suggestion for a wedding present
To: bronson, ehg, renee, jjh, phil, sandy, kak, dla, bkk, rsk, osborn, jp, kds, smithd, t3, alvinsc!deb

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering what you're going to give Malcolm and Michele for a wedding present. A lot of people have been scratching their heads over this, trying to figure out what would be the perfect gift for the happy couple. Well, I think I can help you.

Actually, it was Chris Kent (or was it Susan? I forget) who came up with this idea. It's not a "group" gift, where we all chip in and buy them something neat, like a microwave oven or a 500-gallon aquarium. This is something that each of you can buy separately. It doesn't matter if they all match, in fact it's probably better if they don't. It'll even fit on an airplane quite easily if your flying to California for the wedding. The important thing is that your selection should express your own feelings about the occasion, and about M&M.

By now you're probably at the edge of your seat, wondering what this perfect gift is. It's no big deal, really. It's a toaster.

This seems like the ideal wedding present. First, they said that they didn't want any presents, which really means that they don't want anything that is really expensive. Second, it's something that everyone can probably use (except Eileen, of course :-). Third, there are lots of models available with gobs and gobs of different features, allowing you to choose one that matches your own level of silliness. And last but not least, just imaging how M&M will react when they start opening presents and realize what's going on. Personally, I hope that they open all of the presents in Yosemite so that we can all see their reaction as they opened the 20th package containing a toaster.

So that's the suggestion. If you like it then go out and buy a toaster. Any toaster will do---even a used one. Participation is optional (though I would like to hear from you if you decide to join in the fun). The important thing, though, is to keep this secret from M&M. It won't be an effective joke if they know about it in advance.

If you have questions or concerns feel free to contact me

/Don

P.S. Feel free to spread the word to anyone else who is invited to the wedding. I arbitrarily decided to only send this message to people who I knew (thought?) had a Purdue or GSP connection.

Friends (and a story about friendship)

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed" . . . .

"What does that mean, tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties. . . To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. . .

"If you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. . . . Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! . . . One only understands the things that one tames. . . . If you want a friend, tame me. . . ."

"What must I do to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me---like that---in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . . [and you must] come back at the same hour. If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you. . . . One must observe the proper rites."

"What is a rite?" asked the prince.

"They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. . . ."

So the prince tamed the fox. . . .

[Then the little prince saw a garden of roses.] "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world. . . ."

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you---the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because it is she that I have watered . . . because it is she that I have sheltered . . . because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is is essential is invisible to the eye. . . .

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important. . . .

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."

					Antoine de Saint-Exupery
					from The Little Prince
				  translation by Katherine Woods

Shared Memories

Ann and Phil Ardussi--Rocky River, OH

Diane Bracken--Sunnyvale, CA with Klaus Rebensburg and Herbert Almus

Ed Bronson and Eileen Gelblat--Lafayette, IN

Amy Brownell and George Ramstad--Oakland, CA

Carl Buck--Cupertino, CA

Margaret Butler, Doug Terry, and Sydney Butler-Terry--San Carlos, CA

Paul Carlile, Sue Strang, and Peter Carlile--Burlington, VT

Calvin and Florence C.--Rocky River, OH

Carole Goodman--Maple Shade, NJ with Bob and Gary Goodman

Jill and Pet Hallenbeck--Efland, NC

Phil Hochstetler, Sandy Baldridge, and Paul Hochstetler--Hillsboro, OR

Beth Kirkendall and Mark Grimes--San Jose, CA

Elaine and Ed Koskie--Pepper Pike, OH

Sarah Koskie and Richard Bortins--Santa Clara, CA

Rich Kulawiec--Springfield, PA

Lori Lamel, Jean-Luc and Jodie Gauvain--New York, NY

Richard Lyon, Peggy Asprey, and Susan and Eric Lyon--Los Altos, CA

Raul and Eli Martinez--Sunnyvale, CA

Anne Kristine Meade--Palo Alto, CA

Dan, Tammy, and "Enn" Osborn--Santa Rosa, CA

Wil, Beth, and Mary Elizabeth Oxford--San Jose, CA

Kent Peterson, Ingrid Tarien, and Stefan Peterson--Los Altos, CA

Roz and Len Picard--Wilmington, MA

Jim Preisig--Boston, MA with his father

Paul Ries--San Jose, CA

Jerry Roylance--Mountain View, CA

Wiley Sanders--San Jose, CA

Jean-Pierre Schott--Cambridge, MA

Ken and Belinda Shoemaker and Alexandra Cowell--Saratoga, CA

Jeffrey Slaney and Cheryl Cook--Mountain View, CA

Jennifer Slaney--Taylorville, IL

Patricia and Donald Slaney--Sterling, IL

Deb Smith--Fort Collins, CO

Jean S.--Rocky River, OH

Tom and Judy Tarolli--Rocky River, OH

Tom Tengdin--Columbus, SC

Vivian Tracy--Burlingame, CA

Nancy and Fred V.--Lansing, NY

Gary Wade--Sunnyvale, CA

Don Wegeng--Rochester, NY

Dan Wolens and David Cooper--Lexington, KY

The memories of long love
Gather like drifting snow,
Poignant as the mandarin ducks,
who float side by side in sleep.

						Kenneth Rexroth,
		      from One Hundred Poems from the Japanese

Copyright (c) 1991 by Malcolm Slaney and Michele C. All Rights Reserved.