Chameleon's wedding

Chameleon and The Hungarian did it. I feel an immense gratitude for having been part of the ceremonies. At the registrars office, in a splendid stain glassed hallowed secular hall, the civil ceremony was short, simple and strong, meaningful in all its parts. The bride and groom walked in accompanied by an impressive old bagpiper. There is something about how the bagpipes move the air that makes us vibrate and opens us wide, makes us receptive and ready to be emotional. The law and depth of the commitment was made clear, the love shone through their whole attitude during handfasting, a Celtic knot tying ceremony by means of a Scottish sash. During the reading with the right Scottish accent of Burns ‘A Red Red Rose’, the bride bloomed with pink cheeks and at that moment I noticed the pink roses and blue thistle of her bouquet. The gentleness and respect for each other radiated out of them during the Apache Marriage Blessing and touched all of our hearts:

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before.
Go now to your dwelling place,
to enter into the days of your life together.
And may your days be good,
and long upon the earth.

Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together.
Give the highest priority,
to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.
When frustration, difficulty and fear assail your relationship -
as they threaten all relationships at one time or another -
remember to focus on what is right between you,
not only the part which seems wrong.

In this way you can ride out the storms,
when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives -
remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment,
the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life
together it will be marked by abundance and delight

Seated at the bloggers table, the virtual world materializing, it was time for lightheartedness and the sustenance of the body: delicious food, a thoughtful, teasing, slightly embarrassing, but never shaming speech by the best man and yes, almost all the guy’s wore kilts and strutted their stuff, peacocks and lions all of them! A long Victorian funny, sharp witted poem about how the couple met, would win a poetry prize for light verse, a difficult discipline! A Ceilidh Band with a caller provided the after dinner entertainment, rather we all provided it for them, trying out the different spinning, twirling, hop and scots passes we had never done before. ‘ The White Sergeant’ almost left me in an asthmatic stupor. After a dark devilish, voluptuous velvet black chocolate wedding cake and a few more experiments on the dance floor, it was time for Old Langsyne, holding hands, forming a circle of friends and breaking it at the end to return to all our far-flung places, yet bonded by the joint experience. I feel I have taken a bath in a warm and kind humanity and have had a glimpse of ‘the meaning of life’.