Well the Wedding was beautiful, even if it was too cloudy for a sunset!

Ken and I had a lovely service on Saturday, 8/12/2006 @ 8PM at the Cuthbert House B & B a gbeautiful Antibellum Mansion built in 1790 on the Bay in Beaufort, SC. Our Minister Mary Rock read the service we wrote and we were witnessed by the owners of the B & B and the Ministers husband to be and some other guests at the B & B. I made my dress and jacket, covered my shoes to match and made Ken's tie and the ladies at the Inn helped me get all the flowers in my hair. Afterwards they toasted us with Champagne and we had an amazing dinner at The Beaufort Inn, one of the best resturants in town. Friday and Saturday were spent Gallery hopping and poking around in town and Sunday morning we went to Savannah, GA and did the same thing there, wandering downtown and the Riverfront then staying in another great historic home and dining out in style there too. The three days were relaxing and wonderful and we are now official and delighted. We have so much fun together and everything is so easy. While I am in Europe with Damon on the Cruise from the 8/19th to the 27th, Ken will get all moved in here. Then we leave for Greece 9/21.

For the very brave speed readers, here are our vowes:

Ken.....Jan....You two have found this love and been rejoicing in it, amazed that you found each other at a time in your lives when each of you were pretty independent and didn’t expect to find someone so right for you and now you are desirous of spending all the rest of your lives together. Therefore, these lines which you have written denote the spirit in which you two are now preparing to make your commitment as each other’s “Last great love”. This is a covenant of joy, of two people who met against all odds and miraculously knew of their rightness together immediately.

It was indeed “love at first sight”, and so easy that there was never any doubt. And this ceremony is spoken in the presence of God, who brought them together, making it clear and apparent that they were meant to be together forever. Nothing is easier than saying words; and as you know, nothing is more challenging than living the meaning of those words day after day for 35 plus years. Yet that is the promise you give to each other today. You have discovered that true love is something beyond the warmth, glow, excitement and romance of being deeply in love and newly passionate. It is caring as much about the interests, happiness, and ideas of your marriage partner, as about your own. Marriage is about emotional and spiritual growth together. True love is not total absorption in each other; it is looking outward in the same direction, together. It is facing the boredom and even mundane-ness of the everyday details of just living. It is listening and truly hearing each other and rocking on the porch at the end of each day sharing all that has happened while parted. It is forklifts and difficult clients, and long days in a hot warehouse or at a computer keyboard creating complex plot-lines, then shared at the end of each day with understanding and amongst much teasing. It is reading snippets from books to each other and then discussing ideas for hours, it is tickling and teasing and licking eyes and noses while wrestling and being silly and it is lots of cuddling after all the horse-play is over. It is feeling happy just looking at each other for no other reason then that you love each others faces and find a beauty there; even amongst crooked smiles and crows feet, you see loving twinkling eyes and the hearts reflected in them.

Loving isn’t about perfection and happily ever after; like in fairy tales but rather about endurance and tenacity and most essential, amazing good humor. Love makes burdens lighter, because you divide them. It makes joys more intense, because you share them. It makes you stronger so you can reach out and become involved with life in ways you dared not risk alone. It makes building a home exciting and traveling in tandem through life and around the world richer and something to be shared in laughter, creating better memories when seen with two sets of eyes and holding hands. Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. A good marriage must be created. In the art of marriage, the little things ARE the big things. It is never being too old to kiss in public. It is remembering to say, "I love you" at least once each day, even if only with your eyes. And love is also never going to sleep angry, but yet allowing some cave-time with respect to your differences, without seeing it as abandonment. It is never taking the other person for granted. The tenderness of courtship should not end with the honeymoon but should ebb and flow throughout all your married days and be the glue that keeps you together. That is your home work and it is occasionally going to flounder, but must be reenergized regularly and vigorously and with much joy. So never forget to keep your love and laughter alive throughout ALL of your years, and keep making new memories, don’t just rest on the old ones. The secret to eternity is keeping love fresh and imagination alive not complacense or settling into boredom.

It is wonderful to be comfortable but not to grow stale. So never forget the joy you felt on this special day and keep the spice in your life with sweet little surprises. Marriage is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives. It is standing together facing new worlds and challenges. It is forming a circle of love that gathers into itself the whole extended family. It is doing things 'with' each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy. Marriage is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings. It is not looking for perfection in each other, it is appreciating the flaws too, like in an emerald, the inclusions validate the authenticity. Marriage is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding, patience and most important a sense of humor. Marriage gives each person an atmosphere in which to grow. It is cultivating the capacity to give, and to forgive and then forget and never mention again. It is finding room for things of the spirit. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful in all things. It is establishing a relationship in which independence is equal, dependence is mutual, and obligation is reciprocal and yet each person trusts completely that the other is always their support system. It is not only marrying the right partner, it is 'being' the right partner, which is the difference between getting married and being married.

Will you two now face one another and join hands please. Ken, in committing yourself to Jan, you must promise to continue to be sensitive to her needs and to listen when she explains her feelings. You must promise to be there when she needs you and to do everything in your power to insure her security, happiness and peace of mind. You must promise to share with her your joy of living and be a loving companion. Most of all you commit to this marriage lasting forever and no matter what obstacles surface. Ken, do you so promise? (I do.) Jan, in committing yourself to Ken, you must promise to continue to be sensitive to his needs and to listen when he explains his feelings. You must promise to be there when he needs you and to do everything in your power to insure his security, happiness and peace of mind. You must promise to share with him your joy of living and be a loving companion. Most of all you commit to this marriage lasting forever and no matter what obstacles surface. Jan, Do you so promise? (I do.)

Then you are now blessed in God’s love to be married until the end of each of your lives, and to share growing up as well as older together, gracefully, but with much teasing, becoming much more then two in the coming together with all your heart and spirit with God in your midst.

May I have the ring, please? This ring is a symbol in this, your wedding ceremony, and in your marriage of two things. First, it is made of a material that does not tarnish and this symbolizes your love for one another remaining forever pure and untarnished. Second, it is made in a complete circle, having no beginning and no ending. This too, symbolizes your love for one another, remaining forever. So Ken, as you place this ring on the third finger of your wife’s right hand, please repeat after me: “Jan, with this ring, I thee wed. Let it ever be to us a symbol of our love and respect for each other.” And Jan, in receiving this ring, would you please repeat after me: “Ken, with joy and all the love within my heart to give, I accept this ring as a symbol of our love and our permanence, even when it isn’t perfect or easy.” And Jan, as you place this ring on the third finger of your husband’s left hand, please repeat after me: “Ken, with this ring, I thee wed. Let it ever be to us a symbol of our love and respect for each other.” And Ken, in receiving this ring, would you please repeat after me: “Jan, with joy and all the love within my heart to give, I accept this ring as a symbol of our love and our permanence, even when it isn’t perfect or easy.” Please join with me in a moment of prayer?

Please, Dear God: Bless these two that stand before me now, as they have committed their love and their lives to one another. Be with them in their thoughts, their words and their actions. Bless their lives with health, happiness, peace, prosperity, charity, kindness and with a love that continues to grow and endure forever, while honoring You and each other. We give thanks that this union is touched by your presence here today, and that with You as their Lord; woven with Ken and Jan into a three strand cord which cannot be broken, this marriage will be eternally blessed by you and honor your covenant to love one another till they join you in heaven. They thank you Father God with all their hearts for bringing them together. Amen.

By the authority vested in me by the state of South Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss each other! Before God you are now “Husband and Wife”, a sacred bond until death do you part. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.