Be Excellent to Each Other

Saturday evening, I officiated Erin and Alex’s wedding ceremony at Las Caletas in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

Erin’s telling of how she met Alex does not start off as the stuff of romance: “When I met Alex I was not looking for a relationship.” Ouch. Fortunately, Erin has a smart mom. Check this out: “At the time I had just moved back to Vermont and my mom and I planned a ‘date’ to go to the new frozen yogurt shop in town…  As we checked out… my mom couldn’t help herself but to point out the ‘cute’ man who helped us. In the past she has always been critical of people I dated so it stood out that she seemed so excited by this presumed prospect. While I adamantly refused to go back in and ask for a job application so that I could introduce myself (this was my mom's brilliant plan), I always remembered him. To me he was the ‘fro yo boy’.”

A smart mom figures into Alex’s side of the story too. When asked to explain his spiritual background, growing up in an interfaith family, Alex says, “’Be Excellent to each other, and party on.’ Although the radical time-travelling classic, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, is not often cited as spiritual inspiration, this quote is my mother's summary of our family’s interpretation and application of our two faiths.” I, personally, think that if more religious leaders followed Bill and Ted the world would be a much better place.

A little-known fact is that the movie, like Alex and Erin and Alex’s future offspring, is an “interfaith child” born out of the minds of Chris Matheson, who grew up Christian, and Ed Solomon, who is Jewish. People sometimes think that growing up in different faiths weakens a relationship. Alex knows this is nonsense: “In the sincerest sense of the word, I view her as my partner and she's the best one I could ever imagine. Our similar life experiences in our athletic and career endeavors have provided us with many shared values and traits, but I’m often more inspired by ways in which our different experiences in religion and otherwise created separate qualities that make us even stronger and more compatible.” 

And what Erin writes is downright inspiring, “For this next chapter I think it is obvious to both of us that we will build a far greater life together than either of us could build alone… It’s important to be able to celebrate this monumental moment with all the people who have made us who we are today… The significance of having an interfaith wedding shows honor to both of our families… It… represents what we will be passing along to our future children… raising them with an understanding of both family traditions and religions, teaching them to see the good in people and focus on how similar we all are despite our differences.” 

With that, let’s get on to the vows, because to quote the Wyld Stallyns, “The best place to be is here. The best time to be is now.”