Part I: Introduction

Joe: Hi! We're ready to begin. Please close your umbrellas, if you would, so the photographer has more light to work with. We'd like to ask for your indulgence, too, as we will pause several times during the ceremony for film changes. This is Ben's fault, as he chose to have the photographer work with an unusual and difficult type of film. We hope it won't slow things down too much.
  Please assemble over here and face me now.

Wait until everyone is assembled; then the entrance music begins for the best man & the maid of honor, and then for Ben & Keewi. When everyone is in place, the music ends.

short pause

Joe: Welcome! We have gathered here today to witness an extraordinary event. Today, Ben and Keewon will declare their love for each other, and will join together in marriage. Your love and support has allowed them to grow and flourish in their lives so far. With your continuing love and support, they will grow and flourish together for the rest of their days. As Ben and Keewon take their vows together, I invite you to think of your own vows of love, friendship, honor and faith that you would take with them this day.
  The best man, John-Paul Mead, will now read a poem by Walt Whitman.

John-Paul:
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it stood there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
        without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it,
        and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
        solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend or lover near,
I know very well I could not.

Ben and Keewon hug John-Paul, and John-Paul returns to his place.

Joe: Ben and Keewon, look now into each other's eyes.

Joe: The foundation of a marriage is respect. Only with respect is love possible. Only with respect is communication possible. Only with respect is trust possible.
  Where, then, does respect come from? Respect comes from love. Respect comes from communication. Respect comes from trust.
  And so there is a chain that encircles you both, a chain made of these essential elements, and it is this chain that will keep you together. This chain will sometimes restrict your freedom; that is a sacrifice you choose to make now. This chain will sometimes chafe and irritate; that is a discomfort you choose to embrace now. This chain will sometimes be broken, through your own acts or those of others; you now pledge to work, together, to mend this chain whenever it breaks, to make it stronger, so that it shall not break again. You choose today to bind yourselves together, with all the sacrifices that choice brings, because you do not wish to ever be apart. Let no man work to cleave this chain we forge today.
  The mother of the groom, Helen Haller, will now read from the Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Helen:
  For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.
  Marriage naturally combines the strengths and wills of two people so that, together they seem to reach farther into the future than they did before. Above all, marriage is a new task and a new seriousness -- a new demand on the strength and generosity of each partner.
  The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries. On the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his or her solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.

Ben and Keewon hug Helen, and Helen returns to her place.

Part II: Vows

Joe: Ben and Keewon, take each other's hands, and repeat your vows after me.

Keewi (repeating after Joe):
I, Keewon,
Take you, Ben,
To be my husband,
My partner in life
And my one true love.
I will cherish our friendship.
I will trust you and honor you.
Although I will burden you, I will help you.
Although I will hurt you, I will comfort you.
I will laugh with you and cry with you.
I will forgive you.
Through the best and the worst,
Through the difficult and the easy,
I will always be there, come what may.
As I have given you my hand to hold,
So I give you my life to keep.
With honesty and truth,
I will love you forever.

Ben (repeating after Joe):
I, Ben,
Take you, Keewon,
To be my wife,
My partner in life
And my one true love.
I will cherish our friendship.
I will trust you and honor you.
Although I will burden you, I will help you.
Although I will hurt you, I will comfort you.
I will laugh with you and cry with you.
I will forgive you.
Through the best and the worst,
Through the difficult and the easy,
I will always be there, come what may.
As I have given you my hand to hold,
So I give you my life to keep.
With honesty and truth,
I will love you forever.

Joe: The sister of the groom, Lee Haller, will now read a poem by e.e. cummings.

Lee:
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Ben and Keewon hug Lee, and Lee returns to her place.

Part III: Rings

Joe: These wedding rings are the visible sign of the bond which unites your two hearts in the unbroken circle of love. May these rings remind you always of the vows you have taken, and of the pure and unending love which joins you now. Repeat after me.

Keewi (repeating after Joe):
I give you this ring
as a symbol of our vows,
and with all that I am,
I honor and love you.
With this ring, I thee wed.

Keewi puts Ben's ring on his finger.

Ben (repeating after Joe):
I give you this ring
as a symbol of our vows,
and with all that I am,
I honor and love you.
With this ring, I thee wed.

Ben puts Keewi's ring on her finger.

Joe: You have each pledged to the other your lifelong commitment, love and devotion. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead. Before all those assembled here today to witness this event, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal your vows with a kiss; for the photographer's sake, please make it a good long kiss.

Joe: I now have the pleasure of presenting to you Ben and Keewon, husband and wife.