CHAPTER 7

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Performing the Ceremony

A Kamikaze Voice and Speech Class for Officiants and Celebrants and Others Who Don’t Have Time to Get a BFA in Acting

Up to this point, I’ve addressed writing the ceremony, but what about performing it?

Without turning this into a performance conservatory experience, here are a few tips for whoever may be officiating the ceremony. If you are a couple at the stage of deciding who should officiate your ceremony, here are some things to consider about your candidates. Can whomever you’re considering do all the following things?

Speak up.Even if you have a microphone. Volume implies confidence. (Screaming implies that your girlfriend just told you that her mother is coming to visit.) Warm up your voice. Use whatever vocal training you’ve ever had.

Lay the images out on a silver platter for all to see.No need to rush or bleed lines into each other. You took the time to write these images, thoughts, and anecdotes for people—make sure they do not have to work to keep up with you. Which words are the MOST IMPORTANT in a sentence? Are the images CLEAR or are they justajumbleofreallyhastilyspokenwordsnobodycanunderstand?

OFFICIANT, TAKE NOTICE!

This section can help you perform the ceremony. I spent years of my life training to be a professional performer so that you won’t have to. You’re welcome.

Writing for public speaking is different than writing for reading; short sentences help clarify images for the listeners and ensure that pauses are well placed for you, the speaker. It may be helpful to print out the text of a great speech, then watch a video or at least listen to a recording of the person delivering the actual speech, if one is available. (I am a big fan of the late monologist Spalding Gray; some of his works are available both on video and in print. Swimming to Cambodia, Gray’s Anatomy, Monsters in a Box, and Terrors of Pleasure all demonstrate his mastery of storytelling—and he did it all just sitting at his desk.)

Write to your voice.Meaning, write the way you speak. The only way to find this out is to write something, say it out loud, and determine if your mouth feels comfortable saying the words as written. If not, change a word or two. It may be easier to say, “They got engaged in France a month ago” than to say, “Our frightfully delightful couple became affianced in France in February.”

Enunciate.When you rehearse, saying the words out loud, can you hear each word, each vowel, and each consonant? (Because if you can’t hear the words, and you are right next to your mouth, how will the guests hear the words?) How do the words feel as your mouth forms them? How does each letter feel? Do the words feel or sound like their meaning? Do any of the consonants or vowel sounds repeat word after word? Do they repeat randomly or for a reason?

Rehearse.Get your eyes used to seeing the words, get your mouth used to saying the words, get your brain used to the overall story so even if you waver for a moment, you will still always be at the right wedding talking about the right people. Rehearse with the knowledge that the words may come out differently in the actual wedding and that’s okay. Rehearse with flexibility and openness. Rehearse in a way that familiarizes you with the text but does not make you beholden to a certain line delivery. (One must rehearse in order not to sound rehearsed.) Sometimes I rehearse in different accents, which forces me to really pay attention to the words, to consciously feel every vowel and every consonant. (I also work alone most of the time, so I need to entertain myself.) This also ensures that the actual wedding will sound different than the rehearsal.

Rehearsing is also useful to find the treasure of moments, pacing, and imagery in your text. Speaking of pacing . . .

Vary the pacing. Some parts of the story need to be told slowly to set the scene; others can be told in a rush of excitement. Never sacrifice clarity or enunciation, but if you can learn to vary the delivery of the dramatic and comedic elements of the story, your listeners will not fall into a hypnotic lull. Telling a story in which every sentence sounds like every other sentence is a storytelling no-no. Vary the pace and the tone. Clearly separate one part of the story from another by shifting gears, shifting position, shifting attitude, shifting narrative voice, or shifting focus.Stop completely sometimes. Imply the end of a section with sudden silence. Remember: stops are powerful tools in storytelling. While the words can stop for a moment, the energy must continue: just because there is a period at the end of a sentence, that is no excuse for the energy to drop out of the sentence; if the writing is good enough, the last word in a sentence is the most important word in the sentence and must be presented in the most accessible and energized way possible. Deflating a line’s energy at the end of each sentence derails all momentum. (This makes the story feel as if it is hiding behind a couch when instead it should be bursting out of a cake.) Professional speakers drive their points through their audience’s brains (like a Miley Cyrus wrecking ball).

Now I’m imagining Miley Cyrus officiating a wedding from her wrecking ball.

You’re welcome.

And this is not to suggest bringing the inflection up the way one would when asking a question. (Unless you are asking a question?) Vocally adding question marks at the end of a sentence or even within a sentence implies that the speaker is not sure that the listener understands what has been said—which implies that the speaker may not have said it very well, which implies lack of conviction, which undermines everything the speaker says and makes the speaker sound like a nervous fourteen-year-old: “Then Jimmy? Who thought she was a vegetarian? Took her to an Indian place? But then the food they ate? Was too spicy? So, he sweat like a sumo wrestler in a Bikram Yoga class? So, it was amazing that he got a second date with her?”

Give voice to the voices within the quotation marks.Do you quote people in the love story? Let’s hear their actual voices. If you are a voice mimic, and you know what the speakers sound like, go for it! If you don’t know, at least make it clear that they are two different people talking. Use your body; be one person speaking to the other, then turn to embody the other speaking back. These two people may be on the same level, like two people on barstools at a bar or standing next to each other; they may be on two different levels, one on a balcony, one in the front yard below. One may be tall, the other short; make this clear, and the guests’ brains will fill in the rest.

Accents.Yes, accents! If you can do accents, you are in an elite corps of linguistic specialists. Use accents to catch people off guard, to portray speakers who themselves have accents, to expose regionalisms, and make the most of their contrasts. As I mentioned, I rehearse in different accents, partly to notice every sound the script demands that I make, partly to keep up with accents in case the opportunity arises to impress a hundred Australians.

Use every sense.Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Everything the celebrant does, indeed everything a storyteller does when telling a story is to make the invisible visible, the intangible tangible, the unclear clear. And all of this goes a long way toward evoking emotions (or as the kids call them, “the feels”).

All of it goes toward making the ceremony personal, meaningful, and complete.

Readings

Many couples feel compelled to incorporate readings into their ceremonies—I have a lot to say about this. The smartest, most popular, and most logical way to involve a friend in the ceremony, other than to have that friend become a part of the wedding party, is to have them do a reading (see also Wedopedia: Readings and Wedopedia: Friends). Readings in religious ceremonies are often the only part of the ceremony with any personal connection to the couple, and to have a friend do the reading makes it even more personal. Readings in any kind of ceremony offer a solution to one of the stickiest wedding quandaries: what to do with that friend who means a lot to you, but not enough to make part of the wedding party? Have them do a reading. The guests’ familiarity with the friend will be comforting, and this choice does not burden the friend with taking on the entire ceremony.

Readings in and of themselves can add a philosophical and/or spiritual color to the ceremony; they can be an extension of the couple’s personality and shared beliefs. Readings can come from many different sources: novels, poems, song lyrics, movie dialogue, great orators, or landmark Supreme Court rulings (same-sex marriage ceremonies often include portions of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words regarding the legalizing of same-sex marriage throughout the United States).

Religious readings can solve two problems in one go: couples can have a friend or member of their family (or multiple friends and family members) do a religious reading to acknowledge, in an otherwise non-religious ceremony, a religion or religions that have played a role in their lives, whatever those religions may be. Religious readings satisfy the dual quandaries of involving a person or persons who would otherwise not be involved in the wedding, and it fulfills the “my family really wants us to acknowledge their/our religion” expectation.

However, readings can pose aesthetic and theatrical risks. The effect of a reader’s reading can be antithetical to the couple’s intended effect—the reality is that not everyone is suited to public speaking; not everyone is comfortable in front of a crowd; not everyone is good at reading prepared text, no matter how outgoing they may be in real life or how extroverted they may be in casual public situations. Reading out loud is a skill taught to very few people these days. The likeliest to handle the task well are trained actors, teachers, CEOs accustomed to giving presentations to shareholders, and politicians (well . . . some politicians). If the couple has nobody among their guests, friends, or family who are trained in public speaking, they run the risk of a really bad reading that can be a blot on an otherwise great ceremony, like a splotch of spilled mustard on the Mona Lisa.

Good readers make sure we hear every word and maintain the energy that the celebrant has created. Good readings are brief, perhaps a minute, maybe a minute and a half. One reading is optimal, two readings, especially if they contrast in tone, are okay. My favorite couple ever used three readings—a poetic reading, a Biblical reading that had been read at every family event going back generations, and one highly comedic reading, read by a highly comedic person. All three added to the ceremony, maintained the mood, and were in keeping with the larger reality of a couple with a wide spectrum of family, friends, and spiritual beliefs.

Readings can be great, but beware of having a reading just for the sake of having a reading; they are completely optional. When a trained, experienced celebrant performs a ceremony, it is already intensely personal, which makes readings extraneous. The usual thinking in more impersonal ceremonies is: “This person does not know us at all, so here is some source material that we feel relates to us as humans,” whereas with celebrant-led ceremonies, the thinking becomes: “Here is a beautiful and personal ceremony told by someone who has really taken the time to get to know us, reading the words that we worked on with him—we find no reason to slow down the proceedings with outside source material written by someone like Shakespeare who obviously never knew us.”

To sum up, choose the reader wisely. It’s also a good idea to introduce the reader to your celebrant beforehand so the celebrant can provide some speaking tips, even if only in the particulars of using the microphone. It is best to print the reading in a large font and on actual paper, so it can be read without corrective eyewear, if possible. It’s also helpful to have multiple copies of the reading available, in case the reader leaves his or her copy someplace else.