A reading to remember

Jeremy Townsend shares his reading for the ceremony - photo by Davina + Daniel, 2010

One of my favorite moments from our wedding was hearing our friend, Jeremy -- who happened to introduce me and Fred nearly six years ago -- read something he had written himself. Here's an excerpt:

This isn't your ordinary sunday.
some of us have traveled great distances to be here.
most of us have never been in this room before.
we're probably wearing clothes we rarely wear.
and soon, we'll be dining and dancing with people we've only just met.
It is an extraordinary day, and yet, it feels perfectly natural.

Like the spectacular hills and vistas surrounding the Bay, this ceremony, the wedding of fred and vera, pulls us all up onto a peak together. for decades to come, this day will stand as a benchmark in all of our lives....

It turns out that harmony is considered the vertical aspect of music, separate elements stack up to make something new. melody, being the horizontal aspect of music, tells the story of this new thing as it moves through the world.

Today, we lend our voices to the first few notes of the music they'll make together...

- Jeremy Townsend, (c) 2010