Dearly Beloved...

"Minister" Randy presides over the ceremony

MINISTER:
Dearly Beloved,
we are gathered together here to join together this man and this woman in matrimony.
If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, forever hold your peace because they don't care...

Shannon and I got married last week. The ceremony had a running "theme", so I guess it qualifies for a post on the running-down blog.

When we got engaged, we decided to have the ceremony on the beach in Emerald Isle, NC. We reserved a few houses for the week and invited friends and family to come join us.
Since neither of us are very religious, we asked our friend Randy to be the "officiant".
The ceremony was on Friday, at the end of the week. So before that we had six days of fun in the sun, relaxing with friends and family.

Hardly anyone broke their finger playing volley ball

Calyx does a cartwheel

We even brought the trampoline

Living large... the hot tub overflowed

The Atlantic tries to drown me

On Friday we gathered on a deck, and "Minister" Randy presided over the somewhat untraditional ceremony:

...Do you, Anthony, take Shannon to be your wife, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, in dogs and cats, as long as you both shall live?

"I do!"

...Do you Shannon take Anthony to be your husband, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, in 5Ks and marathons as long as you both shall live?

"I do!"

We then exchanged vows and rings.

...And so, by the power vested in me by the North Carolina Board of Architecture, I now pronounce you husband and wife
You may now kiss each other.

We kissed, Champagne corks popped and the two Dads made toasts.
I thanked everyone, and then Shannon and I took off down the beach on our first run together as a married couple, with our wedding party in tow.

Lula was "Dog of Honor"

Jorge was "Best Dog"

We made our escape.

She stopped to take a picture, so I left her.

Bubbles brought Piñatas for the party

This one was filled with mini bottles of gin and rum

Wedding 2 - The Prequel

It turns out that Randy's particular profession is not legally qualified to be an official officiant.
So before we headed out to the beach, we stopped at the court house in Raleigh, and took care of that pesky technical "legal" part of the marriage.

We were directed to the "Worthless Check" court room, and waited as prisoners in shackles and orange stripes were brought in to hear charges against them. One of them was in jail for writing a $150 bad check at Food Lion 5 years ago.
The guys on Wall Street are getting millions in bonuses for scamming people out of their life savings, and this guy is in jail for bouncing a check to get some food.
I almost pulled out my wallet to pay the $190 to set him free, but didn't. We might go back and do that.

Anyway, that was our wedding week.

More pictures are here. Big thanks to Bubbles for taking the great pictures of the ceremony, and afterwards.

And now we are off to the races as an official couple...