We'll start with the obvious question first -- why get married? Uh, well, we don't know. Certainly neither the steadiness of logic nor the accident of children had anything to do with our decision. The best answer (and the one least likely to be accepted by our peers) is "Because we felt like it!"

On to a much easier subject: Why get married in a tree? The simple answer is, "Location, location, location." But what really happened is John made a daring bluff and Gina called his bluff and raised. Here's the long explanation:

Y'see, after deciding to get married, we wondered aloud for many a day over what particular religion would do as a backdrop to our hitchin'. Neither one of us is what you would call religious in any sane sense (Gina is more sane than John, given that she is a Goddess and does not need religion, whereas John must now worship her as the puny worm that he is, but that's another story). The thought of having some stranger in robes marry us in a church that we never patronize (unless forced into someone's wedding) was just as disturbing as the thought of having some stranger in robes marry us in a court that we never patronize (unless forced into jury duty).

In Maryland, it's so easy to get married some people have been married by accident. Even so, certain laws left over from puritanical times must be followed, or you'll go to jail and not collect 200 dollars. Granted, you'll still be married, but you'll be in jail, too. Rule number One is that you must be married by an accepted marriage technician -- either a minister of a recognized religion, or a clerk of the municipal court. Courts are boring. Religions are insane. It can obviously be seen that choosing a religion is slightly superior than settling for Mister Judge. Technically the minister must be one "of the Gospel" (meaning Christian) but Maryland courts are nice enough to ignore that wording and allow all sorts of other people to get married, too. So we initially decided to fake membership in a religion to get married. This in itself is quite common. Hypocrisy is a traditional setting for at least half of all weddings.

We eventually decided that out of the thousands of religions in which we could be wed, most left bad tastes in our mouths. The ones that didn't -- well, once we started researching them so that we could fake membership, they left bad tastes in our mouths. Yick.

Where to next? Well, inside of course. When we looked inward to our own feelings of spirituality and mumbo jumbo, Gina saw a lot of questions that weren't going to get answered before the wedding, dammit. John saw a confusion and cacophony of loud myths, fairy tales, experiences in other realms, and so forth. John was going to be no help. But then Gina mentioned to John that he used to tell inquisitive religious people that his religion was "climbing trees."

John snorted and said, "We could get married in a tree..."

"OK," said Gina, and promptly started looking for a decent tree to get married in. Our friend Stacy helped; together they must've interviewed over ten trees in and around our neighborhood, and looked at 30 more that didn't make the first interview. The Religion Issue was forgotten during our more important Quest for Tree.

Finding a good tree that's near a nice (i.e. cheap) reception spot is tough. Finding one that THE AUTHORITIES will let you climb is even tougher. Eventually we decided that if our wedding was in a public park, we wouldn't let anyone know we were going to climb until the wedding was in full swing (snutter).

After months of searching we narrowed our choice down to a "tree that would do". It was an old graffiti-encrusted tree with otherwise smooth bark. A nearby historic mill house was available for a not-too-expensive party, limited by fire code to 200 people. We were of course going to break any and all fire codes and climbing rules.

We had just completed making reception reservations at the old mill, when another friend, whom we shall call "Tom Sweeting, Firefighter" (the real names of our saviors have not been withheld to protect their reputations), gave us one more candidate. He reminded us that the "Mayhews" (an eccentric couple accustomed to large bonfires and telling entertaining stories) had a lovely, huge, strong maple tree in their back yard, which could serve us well as vertical altar and aisle.

We promptly visited Bill (a.k.a. Trog) and Maren Mayhew, who were not only happy to let us use their tree, but offered their big beautiful yard and home, and the next-door Maren's-Dad's yard and home, and the next next-door Barchan's yard and home for after-wedding festivities. The Tree, needless to say, was beautiful. And all was offered for free! JOY.

It was only after choosing our site that we actually started planning the wedding ceremony. Since neither one of us desired to get married under the hand of some weird stranger in a robe, we decided a weird friend in a robe would be fine. Unknowing nominees were quickly listed and struck down, 'til Dave Choat -- a great friend and brother -- was chosen for his quick wit, charisma, and willingness to become a cult leader. We quickly ordained Dave behind his back, using the handy but vague Universal Life Church, and then he ordained himself for good measure.

We also finally decided on a real (???) religion, one with a knockout deity and great takes on important religious subjects such as morality, faith, love, and rubber duckies. To summarize John's line of thinking: the more organized a religion becomes, the less real it feels, so therefore -- the best religion is a disorganized one. Furthermore any religion which does not incorporate a sense of humor is not worth an audience, so therefore -- the best religions are the funniest ones. QED.

That's right, we chose to fake membership in Discordianism -- the only religion that tells you in bold print not to believe anything you read. The only religion with catma instead of dogma. We sent a copy of the Principia Discordia (a bible, if you will, full of important reading material to ignore) to Minister Dave, so that he could cram for the wedding.

John surfed thousands of Discordian web pages (thanks, fellow Erisians), sure that he would find some brave newlyweds who had gone before us, and he did. Jenine Abarbanel and Nathan Torkington were wed on the web as a second ceremony, in a decidedly Discordian fashion. If you go look at their ceremony, you will see that it bears a remarkably similar likeness to our own. Was it a coincidence that Jenine and John had a mutual friend? What's coincidence, Doc? After a short e-mailed request, Jenine very happily loaned us her material to plagiarize. Thanks, J.J. and Gnat! We took other stuff from the Principia, and a few of our own ideas for seasoning.

With a little tweaking, we soon had an entire ceremony, complete with homily, vows, ring exchange, a short skit, and some idea of how the Tree should be ascended. To this we added a communal oath, written by Barchan; and a commercial, given by our esteemed sponsor Trog.

Meanwhile, the most important item of the ceremony, THE CAKE, was entrusted to Michael and Yvonne, who -- despite the difficulty of attempting to make a tasty chocolate wedding cake with no eggs, butter, or milk -- accepted the challenge. They performed many tasty experiments. The final product was an immense ziggurat of deliciousness. With strawberries on top. Yummy!

The invitation took a while to write and rewrite, but when we at last went to ye local copy house and printed up a batch, it became the apogee to our roller-coaster of wedding planning. From here on out it was downhill, no turning back! We sent invites out to as many friends and relatives as we felt we could afford to wine and dine and all, but as our wedding approached we were practically throwing them out of airplanes and tacking them on telephone poles. OK, we exaggerate, but we were too happy and unorganized to remember everyone, and we figured any party crashers would bring beer, so we were trying to get the word out to people during the last couple weeks to invite themselves. To those of our friends who didn't get invited or hinted at, we apologize, and we would have missed you, if we had remembered any of that day.

Eventually that day came, and the wedding took off without a hitch, just like a brand new Formula-1 racecar with an Airstream trailer takes off without a hitch.

OK, maybe that metaphor was too complicated. What we mean is, though a lot of unexpected stuff happened and we may have even upset a few culturally-programmed people, nothing went horribly wrong! It was 98 degrees Fahrenheit and very humid that day, but nobody died of heat sickness, and the heat made the sprinklers and water guns more enjoyable. We had two piñatas, two knights in full plate mail, a truckload of ale, delicious foods, sodas stolen from Trog, a bonfire, bikers, eight best men (John initially planned for twenty but compromised), eight best women, flower girls, ring bearer, twenty garters, a full moon, a huge outdoor tent, a dance floor, and tons more. It was a three ring circus pretending to be a wedding! We loved it, and we thank everyone who helped out and everyone who came. Many people still tell us that it was the best wedding they've ever attended, and we agree.

Thanks again everybody!

-- Ginohn