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Gray-Procopio Wedding
October 28, 2015
Introduction
Welcome! Thank you for joining us on this glorious afternoon. We are here to
celebrate the love that Ryan Robert Gray and Mikella Marie Procopio share with
each other and to serve as witnesses as they promise themselves to one another.
Traditionally, weddings are stuffy occasions filled with religious rites and formal
rituals, but as you all know, Ryan and Mikella are not traditional. No, they’re
weird. That’s why we’re all here in Mandi’s yard…on a Wednesday. That’s also
why they asked me to officiate. They saw the video of another wedding that I
performed for some of our friends, and apparently that didn’t scare them off.
Instead, they came to me and told me that they wanted a ceremony that is funny,
touching, and that reflects their eclectic, playful, and caring natures. Then they
walked away and entrusted me with one of the most important events of their
lives. That was, quite frankly, reckless of them. I had been banking on Marty
McFly visiting us last week and rewriting our history, so I really wasn’t prepared
for today. But when nothing changed…or did it…I took their faith in me to heart,
and I hope I’ve managed to do them justice.
Their Story
Now, I’ve known Ryan for a dozen years or more, and yet in many ways, I barely
know him. Like me, Ryan is an introvert, and he tends to play his cards close to his
chest. That has meant that, while we bonded over our shared nerdy interests,
there were large segments of his life that I was completely unaware of. I had no
idea, for example, that our Ryan Gray served as a stuntman on Star Trek Into
Darkness, Thor, and Furious 7.

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No? Well, that’s what IMDB said. Regardless…
Mikella, on the other hand, was a complete mystery to me. I had only spent a few
hours with her before she asked me to play such an important role in her life, and
Googling her turned up nothing as glamourous as Ryan’s stuntwork. Mikella is an
introvert as well, so I had to resort to that time-honored method of truly getting
to know someone: a three-page questionnaire!
Well, OK, first there was a fun trip to the Renaissance Festival, but after that,
yeah, I actually sent them both a questionnaire. It was broken up into three
sections: the first covered rather shallow topics like their favorite books, movies,
and music; the second focused exclusively on their relationship, and the third
focused on what they wanted today to look like.
And what did I learn? Well, first and foremost, I learned that Mikella is an avid
reader and a writer at heart. She took that three page questionnaire, and in a
matter of days, she wrote me 15 pages in response. Fifteen pages! I couldn’t have
been more surprised or more pleased. Ryan returned his survey with a mere eight
pages in comparison, but between the two documents, I learned more about
Mikella and Ryan in those surveys than I think I could have if I had sat and talked
with them for hours. They poured their souls out to me on paper, and after I got
over the shocking and shameful revelation that Mikella has never really been a
Star Wars fan—a deal breaker to almost everyone in nerdom—I learned the story
of this relationship, this marriage to be, is a tale for the ages.
Ryan and Mikella met at summer camp when they were thirteen, and it was love
at first sight...for Mikella. She wrote that Ryan was “Smart, kind, funny, a little

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quiet, and just beautiful. [He was] Completely out of [her] league.” But Ryan
wasn’t there. He was, quite frankly, an idiot. Ryan wrote, “In a funny way, I still
remember the first time I met Mikella. She was sitting on a railing in her tie-dyed
t-shirt kind of away from the other kids. I was immediately drawn [to] and
intrigued by someone who would wear a brightly colored ‘LOOK AT ME’ shirt and
position herself in a ‘GO AWAY’ location. Me being me, I had to go investigate.
Right away I knew she was different—deeper and more complex than anyone I
had met before. Spending time with her was a treat and a challenge, and I
wanted to do it as much as possible.” But despite his immediate interest in
Mikella as a person, Ryan was too dumb to realize that he just had met his future
wife.
They spent time together doing the typical camp-activities that you’d expect—
singing camp songs and roasting marshmallows around the fire, arts and crafts
projects, learning about nature, pranking their newly-discovered twins1
,
competing in the athletic competitions against the camp across the lake2
, landing
the spaceship that they had accidentally launched into orbit3
, defending the camp
from the evil mining corporation that wanted to plunder the land4
, and, of course,
running away from a machete-wielding maniac5
—and by the end of the week,
they had become great friends. Well, while Ryan had found a great friend in
Mikella, she confessed to me that in that week, she had fallen in love with Ryan.
1
The Parent Trap
2
Meatballs
3
Space Camp
4
Ernest Goes to Camp
5
Friday the 13
th
(take your pick)

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In that survey, I asked Mikella to pinpoint that exact moment when she knew she
loved Ryan, and in the novella that she sent back to me, she said that she couldn’t
really remember a time when she didn’t love him. “Maybe” she said, it was “that
night we took a walk on the beach looking for sea turtles with all the other
campers, and he let me wear his hat…Or maybe,” she said, “it was the end of
camp dance party. I have never been particularly comfortable dancing with
people, and at thirteen, the whole thing was just so awkward and overwhelming.
But this was someone I wanted to be near. I wanted to awkwardly dance with this
wonderful, beautiful boy. I didn’t just want to dance with somebody, I wanted to
dance with him. And I really, desperately, didn’t want to dance with anyone else.
He wouldn’t ask me—I knew that for sure—and when I got up the nerve to ask
him, he turned me down.”
—to Ryan— Idiot.
“I still don’t know how,” Mikella wrote, “but he managed to stroll into my heart
and set up a permanent place there.”
So, despite Ryan’s stupidity, the two of them became close friends. They tried to
keep in touch through long letters, emails, and phone calls, but they didn’t see
each other for over a decade, and they occasionally they lost track of one
another. They both told me that those times when they weren’t in contact were
essentially the worst times of their lives. Yet in the times when they did write or
call each other, they gave each other comfort. Mikella said that for almost every
“devastating thing, every hard time and rough patch I’ve had since I met him, he’s
been there for [me]. He has been my person. Ryan is who I call[ed] when I

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need[ed] to process things, figure things out, or just get out of [the] bad places in
my head.”
Ryan said virtually the same thing when he told me that, “for many years Mikella
has been my sounding board. I always talked to her before and during every hard
spot and every big decision I had to make…The day I found out I had a brain
tumor, I called her, and she just listened to my melt down and then supported me
all the way. The first time my doctor upped my first meds, he went WAY
overboard. I called her from the bathroom floor VIOLENTLY ill. She stopped what
she was doing, looked up my meds, and told me what to do… She has been my
port in the storms, even and especially the ones of my own making, and she has
always told me the truth, regardless of what I wanted to hear.”
Now, eventually there came a time, a miraculous moment, when Ryan’s utter
stupidity subsided. It took over a dozen years and personal crisis that shook him
to his very core, but with Mikella’s help, Ryan finally recognized the depths of his
feelings for her and the depths of her feelings for him. “I think I always knew I
loved her,” he said. “I just never understood HOW and HOW MUCH until much
later in life. How can you not love someone who knows you at least as well, if not
better than yourself? How can you not love someone who truly wants to be a
partner in your life, but will clearly tell you that they don’t NEED you, they WANT
you?... When did I know I loved Mikella? When she protected me from myself,
helped me pick up my pieces, and [then] put me back together.”
—to Ryan—Took you long enough.

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And then it was as if a light switch had been flipped. The dam had burst, and his
love for her came thundering out. Earth’s core inexplicably shifted, the magnetic
poles reversed, and the compass in Ryan’s heart finally pointed to where it should
have all along. He final acquiesced, took a bite from the offered plate, and
discovered that he did, in fact, like Green Eggs and Ham6
.
Ryan’s revelation brought on the whirlwind of romance, and soon thereafter—by
comparison, at least—they were engaged. Today, their engagement—their
legendary courtship—comes to an end, but Ryan and Mikella’s relationship is like
a great book series: the end of the first volume merely marks the beginning of a
much greater journey.
Reading:
Ryan and Mikella are both fond of reading great works of literature, and they
share a love for science fiction and fantasy, so it should come as no surprise that
in that 15 pages that she wrote for me, Mikella shared several choice quotes from
her favorite collections of poetry and prose. They were all wonderful pieces, but
the two that seemed most important were from Mikella’s favorite book series by
Jacqueline Carey.
Like many other wonderful writers, Carey uses the fantasy genre to explore and
highlight the depths of humanity. In one book, she writes that “We are all these
things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness,
loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than
6
Dr. Suess

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human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.”7
And yet in another
book, Carey demonstrates exactly how love can not only elevate the human spirit,
but torment it. “...We are mismatched in more ways than I can count, and like as
not, we’ll find ways to hurt each other neither of us have even dreamt yet. The
only thing I can imagine worse than spending my life with you is being without
you--I’ve done it, and I never want to experience the like again.”8
Paired together, these quotes demonstrate the extremes of love—its lofty ideals
and its all-too-harsh realities. It will now be up to Ryan and Mikella to ensure that
their relationship soars through the rest of their epic series, and thankfully, they
are well prepared for the volumes that will follow.
On Love
You see, Ryan and Mikella have learned what it took me years to realize: love is an
intimate glimpse at another’s truest self. Love is the willingness to put your life in
the hands of another; to expose your deepest, darkest secrets and fear along with
your wildest hopes and dreams with one another; and to change things about
yourself and become a better person for another. So in many ways, Ryan and
Mikella have been loving each other since they were 13. They know that love can
be shown through kind words, shared time, acts of service, the giving of gifts, and
a loving embrace. They have learned to demonstrate their love for one another in
a myriad of ways and have grown ever-closer in their relationship because of this.
Now as we proceed with the formalities of the day, they will share their vows with
one another and share with you a mere glimpse of their love.
7
Kushiel's Avatar
8
Kushiel’s Chosen

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The Formalities (Vows & Ring Exchange)
Wedding vows are promises that spouses make to each other. Having heard the
loving and yet mocking vows that I wrote for our friends and perhaps fearing that
I would jokingly commit them to promises that they wouldn’t want to keep, Ryan
and Mikella have dared to write their own vows. They will now strain to withhold
their tears for a moment as they awkwardly stumble through them.
Ryan:
I vow to love you, play with you, and keep you young. To help distract you when
you need distracting and help you focus when you need to get shit done. (And to
work really hard not to get those backwards.) To support you when you can't
support yourself and to be your comfort. To protect you from door greeters, sales
people, and skittery things. (Especially spiders and roaches.) And to be your
partner, your imperfect Perfect Companion.
Mikella:
I promise: To play with you, to hold sacred that spark of childish joy that we let
burn when we play together. To tell you the truth when I know you don't want to
hear it and when I know I don't want to say it. And to try to figure out how to be
nice about it. To listen to you and to hear the things you struggle to say. To love
you and keep you as my person. To challenge you and push you to be and do
better. But still to cut you some slack when you need it. To be there for you, still
loving you when things go wrong and when the world falls apart. To build a life of
us, for us.
Yeah, that was sweet.

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Now, the rings that you will give to each other are symbols of those promises, and
they should be a constant reminder of the responsibility that you have to consider
your spouse above all others. That remains true even if you’re an idiot, like me,
and you lose your ring.
May we have the rings?
Ryan, please take Mikella’s ring, place it on her finger, and repeat after me: With
this ring [] I pledge my life to you, [] my love to you [], and my faithfulness to you.
[]
Mikella, please take Ryan’s ring, place it on his finger, and repeat after me: With
this ring [] I pledge my life to you, [] my love to you [], and my faithfulness to you.
[]
Make sure it’s on there really well. Jam it in if you need to. Good.
Handfasting
And now, Ryan and Mikella’s hands will be bound together with cord in a
handfasting ceremony, an ancient tradition that can be traced back thousands of
year across many different cultures. Like the wedding rings they just exchanged,
the handfasting is meant to symbolize their promise to be with one another for
the rest of their lives. After the ceremony has concluded, the cord will be
removed, and they will take it home and keep it with the other treasures that
they have collected together. Any time their eyes fall upon it, they will remember
that today they became one.

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Ryan and Mikella, please join hands. As Anna and Trey wrap your hands together,
I will read what has now become a traditional blessing for me. It has been
adapted many times, but its origins can be traced to a prophet of the mountain
people who live to our north:
I hope life treats you kind, and I hope you have all that you've dreamed of. I wish
to you joy and happiness, but above all this, I wish you [both] love.9
Closing
It has been 17 years since that fabled last night of summer camp, and look at how
far you’ve come. On Saturday, we’ll join you at your reception, and you’ll have
your first official dance as husband and wife, but it certainly won’t be your last.
Mikella, you confessed that you always feel uncomfortable and awkward dancing.
But one of the wonderful facts of life is that when you have a partner dancing
with you, the awkwardness falls away. From now on, neither of you will be left
wanting for a partner. Regardless of whether life’s tempo beats fast or slow—
whether you’re Dancing on the Ceiling10
, doing the Conga11
, or simply slow
dancing, swaying to the music12
—you’ll be holding hands just as you are now and
gliding your way through the years to come. In the meantime, just Shut Up and
Dance.13
There will be chaos, hardship, and hurt in the world, but you can always
take comfort in each other if you remember that together you can dance your
9
“I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton
10
Lionel Richie
11
Gloria Estefan
12
Johnny Rivers
13
Walk the Moon

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cares away. Worry’s for another day. [Just] let the music play14
and cherish each
other.
And now, I have the distinct pleasure of pronouncing you husband and wife. Ryan,
you may now kiss your bride.
14
Fraggle Rock