Our Wedding Ceremony

Victor and I both feel that weddings are a private matter instead of a show for others.  We plan on marrying with only ourselves and our minimum of two witnesses, and a Humanist Celebrant as an officiant.

Humanist Celebrant:  Paul Heffron

Witnesses:  Eric Bunde and Noreen Hruby

The wedding will take place on our 3 year anniversary, two weeks prior to the celebration party.  The venue is the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park in the amazingly beautiful Sunken Garden.  This is a place I remember from when I was young, and I think it’s beyond gorgeous:

Sunken Garden at Marjorie McNeely Conservatory

Marriage Ceremony of Crystal Dervetski and Victor Tanner

October 26, 2009 at the Como Park Conservatory Sunken Garden

Opening Remarks by Paul Heffron

This is a very special occasion and fittingly it takes place in an especially beautiful setting.

Marriage is a very personal relationship, but there is a public aspect to it. Our lives and relationships take place in our community. Crystal and Victor are today becoming married in a public and legal sense in accord with the laws of the state of Minnesota. Marriage laws have changed through time and need to change some more, but fortunately they are such now that Crystal and Victor can do their wedding in their own way and enjoy the privileges and benefits of a legal marriage. So this is a very special occasion.

This is also a happy occasion. It’s happy because we celebrate the marriage of two people who are committed to live together in a loving and faithful relationship. Such a relationship is one of the greatest wonders of human experience.

This is a happy occasion also because we celebrate two people who found themselves and matured and then found each other. They are so right for each other. They share interests, values, and goals and have a promising future as a married couple.

This is a happy occasion also because we celebrate here a modern equalitarian-companionship marriage. Unlike the traditional patriarchal marriage, both partners share the rights and responsibilities and the prospect of greater personal fulfillment.

This is a happy occasion and a cause for celebration also because Crystal and Victor as a married couple contribute to their community. Marriage is a case in which one plus one makes something more than two. Individually they contribute, but together they are stronger and can do even more for a better world.

(The following reading is taken from the chapter headed “A Match Not Made in Heaven” in Dan Barker’s book Losing Faith in Faith. I have selected this and put Crystal and Vic’s names in the reading because it seemed so suited to them.)

“To (Crystal and Vic), a marriage is an affectionate agreement between equals, a loving contract between peers that requires no blessing above and beyond the mutual respect, admiration, and trust of two individuals who cannot imagine not spending the rest of their lives together.

“Two notes on the piano, if they are the right two notes, when played together will produce a pleasing sound called harmony, which is dependent on the character of each tone, but which is somehow more beautiful than the individuals apart. Anyone who knows Crystal and Vic as individuals knows that neither of them is apt to sacrifice their individuality for any reason; but you also know that as a couple united in love and common goals, they most often find themselves thinking and acting ‘as one,’ in harmony.

“Both of them know that you cannot give or receive love unless you love yourself first. Marriage is not an institution in which the self is lost: it is a place where the self is found. (Crystal and Vic) have found themselves, with each other, ‘at home’.”