Having recently been to a wedding, I am thinking about my own wedding, back in 1992. We chose a decidedly nontraditional approach to our ceremony. It is a choice that has endured and I continue to be glad of it. My wife, Andrea Jarrell, and I met doing civic activities. These things were the center of our life at the time. We were (and are) both true believers that a good person leaves their community better than they found it, or tries to. We wanted our wedding to embody the civic ideals to which we aspired.

It’s a neat story.

How We Met

The day before primary election day in Los Angeles in June 1991, my not-yet-wife and I had both begun volunteering on behalf of an acquaintance, John Emerson, who was in the midst of a pitched battle for a seat in the California state Assembly. John was Deputy City Attorney for Los Angeles. Andrea and I didn’t know one another yet. We ended up phone-banking next to one another, and got to talking. The next night, at the victory party, we talked more.

John lost by a heartbreaking 31 votes, which entitled him to a recount but he decided against it, opting instead for party unity.

Over the next months, we got to know one another. We both had jobs that caused us to circulate in Los Angeles’ civic realm — I was a major gift fundraiser for my alma mater, and Andrea was an executive at the premier speaker’s forum in town. Our courtship is for another time, but suffice to say we hit it off, became friends, fell in love, and got engaged to be married — all very quickly. By October we’d made the decision.

Will You Marry Us?

We wanted John to marry us, which he could do as a City official. We met him at a downtown diner to ask him. We had no real idea how kind John was being to meet with us, two young kids. He had a very, very big job. But I think he was flattered, or his heart was touched. He said yes.

At lunch, we learned two important things. First, that John comes from a long line of Presbyterian ministers and so was quite qualified to perform a wedding ceremony, beyond his sterling personal qualities. Second, we learned that John was about to take a leave of absence to run the California arm of the campaign of a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton.

I remember he felt we needed to know this because there might be some scheduling difficulties. Our wedding was to be September 19, 1992. If you work in politics you know that real political people schedule nothing of personal importance after Labor Day in an election year. But John agreed to marry us. I was not experienced enough to know at the time what a big thing this was — I am awestruck with gratitude just thinking about it now.

A Civic Ceremony

As we planned for the wedding ceremony, Andrea and I became convinced we wanted to do something a little different. The civic life of the community was what had drawn us together, and was the milieu in which we had courted. Not out of pride, or out of a desire to be novel — but we wanted to embody this somehow in our ceremony.

On the front of the wedding program, lovingly designed by family members Kathy and Ron Morris, appeared a quote from Cicero: “Marriage is the first bond of society.”

We chose as a location the lobby of the Pacific Mutual Building downtown, which has two sweeping marble staircases. (Trivia buffs may know that this building’s exterior was the courthouse in Murder, She Wrote.) The ceremony would take place on the main lobby floor between the two stairways. During the processional, we would each descend the staircases simultaneously.

That took practice so we didn’t get out of balance, with one hitting ground level before the other!

Once we descended, it was time for the most unique element of our ceremony. We each addressed our friends and family who were attending the wedding. Very briefly, we said a few words. And then, together, we invited questions.

Now that I have been to a few weddings, and I know how steeped in tradition they are (and rightly so), I can’t quite believe we carried through with this. We didn’t mean it to be gimmicky — we wanted to underscore the idea that a wedding takes place in the context of a community. The community supports the couple, and the couple owes a debt of gratitude to the community.

It’s hard to really fix some of the details of one’s wedding, as emotions run so high. So I can’t recall exactly what the questions were, nor what exactly we each said. I do recall that there were mundane questions (who cooks?) and more philosophical ones. And I recall that some of our friends made their own very moving remarks.

Our Charge

After our address, and the questions, John addressed us. He had written his talk out in a little black notebook, which we still have and is sitting on my desk as I write this. (It was a precursor to today’s Moleskines.)

He began with a call-and-response from the audience, in which the gathered celebrants affirmed their support of our marriage. The final question was: “Will you wholeheartedly accept each of them in this community and share with them the tasks of making the world a neighborhood of human care and support?” To which, as you might imagine, the audience answered, “We will.”

I had considered transcribing all of John’s stirring talk, but decided against it. I’ll instead point out just one piece.

“Your charge, and your desire,” said John, “is to serve your community through your life’s work.”

He went on: “Few better exemplify the ideals of public service for our generation than Bobby Kennedy. And as you think upon the challenges that you face together, I ask you to remember his words:

‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. . . .

‘And each of us will ultimately be judged — and will ultimately judge him or herself — on the extent to which he personally contributed to the life of this nation and to world society of the kind we are trying to build.’”

Like anyone, we have imperfectly lived up to our aspirations, but Andrea and I have tried. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity, by attending my friend Emily’s wedding, to recall and reaffirm the ideals that drive us in our work.

Above all, I am so grateful to my wife, Andrea Jarrell, for the example she sets for me.