A year ago, today

If my memory serves me correctly, and it doesn't but I verified the date, a year ago today, Sebastien and I woke up very early, fished through a room of sleeping people, found the keys and our friend Brad, and drove down the street to secure two boxes of coffee and all of the yummiest pasties at our favorite corner store. I was so excited because, usually when Brad, Sebastien and I finally make it to Marvin's Market--habitually a good span after the brunching hour, their selection of tasty creations is utterly diminished. As they were still fresh and plentiful, we did our best to utterly diminish them, personally.

We didn't get coffee from Marvin, because although the furniture is eclectic and the wifi is free, there is a Starbucks across the street and they are 5 thousand times faster. Cough. Their coffee is also at least that much more memorable.
It's a little know fact that I used to work at a Starbucks, (a different location, further up Wisconsin) but one of my former co-workers was transferred to this new location... unbeknownst to me. Coincidentally, he and I used to grouse about how assholes never be calling ahead to get boxes of coffees going--a large hassle for your barrista, because they basically have to brew a whole pot, just for you, during rush, which is anytime at a Starbucks.  Out of respect for my old squad I had purposely not dropped this order on my former place of employment....You see where this is going, it played out a little something like this:

Brian: Two boxes of coffee, extra cream and sugar...?
Me: Thanks.
Brian: What?! This is for YOU?
Me: Give me a break, I'm getting married today.

Cue theme music because I was out of there like a half priced flat screen the day after thanksgiving!

The days leading up in brief:
With more time, I could tell you about how cute drunken Sebastien was returning from the bachelor party with stories, stories, stories! How uplifting it was to reconnect with each one of our 15 three-night-best-friendy-house-guests. How nervous I was at putting my mom and sister in the same room together, after not having talked for years...not to mention the fact that the Glenn Fucking Beck Rally was the same weekend as our ceremony and every idiot who could fit into a tee shirt, and read at a fifth grade level was clogging up the American History museum and getting in my way on the metro.
But I won't bother at all with any of those...especially the last one, when my friend over at the Bitter Buffalo did a much better job of it. Her perspective on our wedding is pretty charming, as well.

We got married on stretch of woods we always loved to hike around in behind our apartment. Our best friend from university, Brad, opened his sermon with a Princess Bride quote...you know the one..and we each had our childhood best friend's read a poem on our behalf. Sebastien's bestie Chris, read, The Road Goes Ever On, by Tolkien and my bffl Rhiannon, read Colours by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Directly after that, we in turn read our own vows. In the spirit of my blog being a scrap book, I am posting them here:

My Vows to Erin

I vow to you, Erin McCarthy, that I will always love you and always care for you because you are my beautiful, bombastic sweetheart and no matter the getting up at 6 AM so we can teach at school, the nights where nobody wants to cook or pay for takeout, all the buses we’ve missed and the metro stops I’ve made you run through, all the anguish we’ve had over our future, I still want you, Erin, nothing but Erin and the whole Erin!

I vow to you that you are, have been, and always will be beautiful to me and that I will continue to seek the solace of you arms, because who else could offer such wild abandon to me, such gorgeous golden hair, such a lissome figure and form?

I vow that I will not cease to suggest hot but impractical new shoes and dresses, because if you accept only one out of ten things I suggest, you are still doing both you and me a service.

I vow that I will attempt to close cabinet doors and turn off lights, though I can promise you I will not always remember.

I vow that if we ever have children I will neither forsake them or feed them to the lions, and I will endeavor to give them everything that a child born of our scoundrelly genetic material deserves. Whatever the circumstances, I will try to be the cool and understanding nerd, for that is the only role model I have had and I could not hope for better.

I do vow that I will try to be truthful to you about how I think and feel, though I know you might bite me for being honest.

I do vow that I shall continue to read to you novels at night, with the stipulation that I not be forced to read more than two consecutive hours without rest.

I vow that I will not stop telling you about Flying Tiger volunteers in China or displacer beasts or of Ugandan politics or dark Jedi, because you love me for who I am, not in spite of it.

I vow to you that I will never do you or our children physical harm, because as a student of ethics and conflict resolution I recognize it to be wrong, and as a student of military history I recognize not to embark upon foolhardy campaigns- which is another way for me to say that I know my Erin has the berserker fury of the of the she-wolf defending her cubs, and I count that as an asset.

I vow that I will always be there to hold you if you need to cry and have somebody listen, and that I’ll try to give sage advice even if I’m out of my depth.

I vow to you I will always expect to share evenly the collaborative project that has been our life together, and that I will not fail to do my best to provide for us and for any children we may have.

I vow to always treat you as an equal and strive not to assume any privileges, because women are simply deserving of respect, because we are both free people giving to each other of our unfettered will rather than out of contractual bondage (not as hot as it sounds, I assure you!), And because we are both free people who are together by choice and mutual love and no law or obligation in the universe is greater than what we surrender to each other freely in our affection and intimacy.

I vow to you Erin McCarthy, that you are my favorite and I will give my all, despite my many flaws and limitations, all I can to make what we’ve arduously- and ardor-ously- built together last and grow into the future, because I don’t think I could bear to have it without you, my beloved sweetheart.

My retort:
For me, 
This has really been a time of friendship and laughing
and probably some the hardest bounces on the court of my adulthood
as yet
but in the eyes of the court and the court of my fears
having fought my way to the castle
beyond the goblin city
I know why I am standing here
Next to the partner
Who I am about to vow my unremitting love to

As a frame, it is my references--
In direction and reflection
I vow to honor that learning and share that light with the world
because some how you became my light in the world
my last real hope for peace
when peace is breakfast that gets eaten as lunch
before grocery trips on foot

 I remind you that you are the frame
in which my future echos are pictured. 
In flashlights and explosions
in hand holdings and home runs

I vow that my adventures are yours to share
From the monotony of a pan-African-pub-crawl
to the perils of leaky faucets and dirty dishes

I vow to be on the committee of out marriage
cast votes not for political gains but rather for
the right reasons
I vow to keep you in my reasons 
I vow to keep you MY REASON
and a vow above all, to listen to reason

I vow to use your chest as a bed frame
and to be your sinew when your seems are affray
I vow to stand beside you
To be on your side
and to side step the enemy
for a bonus to all attack rolls

Perhaps this is only the frame
perhaps all boards are not yet in place
but this is our house
in the middle of our street--
La Rue de nous


We laughed, we cried. My family almost totally behaved. Bangarang. The reception was on a boat.  (I won't ever forget it!) A nice little tour around the Potomac. Obviously, I photographed the food:

Dried Cherries and Candied Pecan Duck en Croute

Asian Grilled Salmon

Roasted Chicken Santa Cruz 

Roasted Vegetable Napoleon

Seafood Cannelloni Gratinee

After that, the adults were pretty exhausted and so most of them took naps or whatever. My friends and I went to a great burrito place with a rooftop bar and then set up a volley ball net in the park.  

We kept the ball aloft, a surprising amount.

Everybody got a chance to check out some of DC's free museums, we showed off some of our favorite restaurants. My team traded blows with the barely educated,  grossly uniformed, Glenn beckieans, and some quality time was spent with our families. Nothing really changed in our lives, as a couple, but Sebastien and I were still happy to be there.

Quick notes on symbolism:
I don't care how much money you would like to spend. Weather you are going for the comfortably homespun like we did or the Lots of extra 0's at the foot of the bill, your ceremony should mean something. 

 We did our toast with the wine glasses we got in Alsace the previous year, when we were visiting Sebastien's uncle and cousins. 

 Chris read the poem from the original copy of The Hobbit that Sebastien and his sister received from their grandfather, when they we just wee sprites.

Sebastien and I made our rings ourselves out of 20 sided dice, hot glue on lone from Meridian and metal ring forms. My bracelets are from my older sister. One of them is actually a necklace that Zack gave her before he left this world. 

That die is actually a gift from our friend, Alex who could not be at our wedding. It was the first twenty sided die I ever owned and he threw it up to me on the roof of main building, back at Antioch, where I was filming my senior project. And it accidentally matched me dress!

We went to a paint store to pick out the colors for the cake. It was also really fun sampling the different pieces with Brad over coffee as we made our selection. We originally wanted a displacer beast on our cake. Long story ;)

There were so many people who couldn't be at our wedding, from the French side of the family, to the Saint Louis side of the family, millions of Antiochians--right down to a bunch of good  ol Cape Codders and my impossible little Zackary. But they were in our hearts. And we had a piece of them there with us, then.

Marriage isn't for everyone. Surely, our particular marriage arrangement isn't for everyone. But I've never really believed that love was out of the question for anyone. And with all my heart I know that my country will come around and allow all their tax payers the same rights and privileges that they, as equal citizens, deserve.  Cuz let's be honest America, marriage is pretty gay. 

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