A Tropical Contact High

Sunday morning (6/6), I officiated Katie and Mason’s wedding ceremony at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, in Dallas, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

I love how Katie describes her spirituality: “I always felt more in tune with God (spiritually) when I was in nature… I find significance in small details or coincidences. I believe they are signs that help me follow and choose the right path.”

Mason, being extremely attuned to this side of Katie, says that though their first date was on the mini golf course, and unnatural sport if there ever was one, he shrewdly asked her to be his “girlfriend in an official capacity,” (his words, not mine), on a mountain having “lugged an entire cooler and picnic set up,” (again, his words, not mine).

Maybe that’s why when they were to move in together, he took her to live with him on an island. Somebody should have told him that Rhode Island is not really an island. Ah, well.

Ok, seriously, though, the reason we are here today does have to do with a real island, specifically a small country, which admittedly, in the words of the eponymous character in the movie Arthur, would likely have been defeated by the almighty armies of Rhode Island. I speak of course of that constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba.

Mason says, “After five months of living in Rhode Island, we took a much-needed vacation to Aruba. It was Katie’s first time out of the country. I decided to propose on the last day of our trip on the beach… I took the initiative to propose as I believe we were both looking for something more and knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other.”

Now, everyone knows that it is patently illegal in about 27 states to mention the words Aruba and beach, without acknowledging that Beach Boys song. You know which one I speak of, their final big hit and one the greatest earworms ever composed, Kokomo.

I think that is quite fitting, because though the song invokes an imaginary place, it describes the refuge that marriage should be, the place you may escape from the quotidian worries of life, “That's where you wanna go to get away from it all.”

It describes the state of mind marriage should embody, not just that you have once fallen in love, in the past, but perpetually in present and future tense, “falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band.”

Most importantly, it describes what every marriage should aspire to, “We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow.” Go the distance, and methodically perfect “your chemistry,” so for many years to come you can indeed “defy a little bit of gravity,” as, “that dreamy look” in each other’s eyes really does give you “a tropical contact high.”