rob wrote the ceremony with assistance from Kristen and Mosno Al-Moseeki.
Welcome, friends and family. For those of you who have traveled far, welcome to Maryland. We’re so pleased to have you gathered here for this happy occasion. We also want to remember those family and friends who could not be with us today, especially Rob’s father, Sanford Hinkal. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Ash. I’m an old friend, former housemate, and musical collaborator of rob and Kristen’s, and I’m honored that they chose me to officiate their wedding.
(turns to rob)
Rob - aka Robbit:
I met you way back in 2002, I was new-ish to the country, and discovered an open mic in College Park called The College Perk. I got my hands on an ilyAIMY CD, and wrote a review about it in my college's newspaper, The Owl.
(turns to audience)
I was an ilyGROUPIE for sure, loved them (and still do), and as I was starting my own band in the scene, I knew I had made it, when Rob personally contacted me and asked for my little immigrant band to open up for them.
That's the kind of person Rob is, kind, humble and encouraging. I still look up to him, and I always will.
(turns to Kristen)
Kristen - aka Weasel
I've known you for less time than I have Rob, but you are still just as significant. One of the most talented and brilliant musicians I have met, I’ve been honoured to work with you.
(back to audience)
She is full of gentle surprises that have a large impact. She plays the cello, bowing and plucking. She plays the steel pan. She sings harmony in almost all 500 bands that she plays in. And she gets me Batman ornaments for Christmas. See? Gentle yet impactful. Kristen is a kind, considerate, and loving human and I am honored to be called her friend.
Thank you for letting me do this for you, my friends.
(deep breath!)
The dictionary definition of “LOVE” is : a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. It can also be ordering Panda Express and binge-watching Battlestar Galactica with someone who doesn’t spoil stuff by letting you know who the Cylons are.
And so today we are taking a moment away from Life, the Universe and Everything to celebrate Love. Specifically – the Love of these two people, my friends Kristen Jones and rob Hinkal – as they decide to finally and willfully, well and truly, Tie the Knot.
Terry Pratchett once wrote, "It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. Yep. It's called living." As we sit here in Rockville, slightly isolated from the whir and rush of Beltway traffic, we are Living a moment that will never come around again.
Wait for it….
There goes another.
They go by fast, but we’re sharing them together - here in this room, where Rob and Kristen have both played music and experienced music, we are sharing warmth, sharing breath, sharing these words and sharing the Love of family and friends. For us as humans, there is probably no other greater experience than that of SHARED experience, and rob and Kristen have decided to now share their experience with one another through to the end of their days. Not to be morbid...
But that’s what we’re talking about isn’t it? In today’s world we have few things that are permanent. Everything is disposable, everything is temporary – so when you find that special someone, the one you can’t Live without - you grasp that person to you as tightly as possible for as long as possible, because no moment will ever come around again.
“It seems the best relationships, the ones that last, are the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And suddenly they’re the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.”
Dana Scully danced dangerously close to solving her biggest X-File right then – coming close to realizing that the Truth was not OUT THERE somewhere, but right next to her. Back to that Book of the Word - the dictionary defines a “friend” as “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard”. It can also be a Lovely person who cooks vegan curry because they know you’re coming to watch Voltron… even though she’s not vegan and she doesn’t like Voltron…
As friends, rob and Kristen spent days together labeling strange instruments where they met at the House of Musical Traditions, and then they spent nights watching sci-fi shows and highly questionable cartoons before finally realizing the same thing that Dana did: A touch of an elbow, a shared experience. Twining their Lives closer and closer together and tying their stories closer and closer together until their stories merged.
Maybe it’s a cliché? That idea that the married couple starts every story with “we” and tells every story from the perspective of “us”, but when Love binds us together, we can’t visualize any story without a “we” and hope no story has to end without an “us”. You begin to look back at older tales and maybe every one of THOSE ends with a “I wish you’d been there”.
Well, no. Not every story.
Albert Einstein said “Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.” But it can feel that way. Like a natural law. Rob and Kristen realized that they could not see their Lives apart from one another. That the only hole in their Life happened to be the exact shape of this one other person, and physics always wins.
Today is the culmination of their inextricable attraction. Today they declare to one another and to the world - yep, these two masses have become permanently entangled with one another.
Music is the central focus of rob and Kristen’s Lives. They found one another through it, all of their friends are tied to it, it comes through their walls thanks to their neighbours, their Living is made from it. Music is almost universal in our cultures, and it was through music that I too met rob and Kristen. Performing together, rhythms and harmonies, tempos and arpeggios – music from the ice cream truck tells us it’s summer, music comes up at the end of the movie to tell us that it’s over. Music from friends walked us into this room, and music from friends will walk us out again. Music is something to celebrate and something to help us celebrate. It helps us to cope, it helps us to Love, it helps us to grieve. Yes. It surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds all of us together. Even if you can’t hear it, you can feel it. Music runs through everything that rob and Kristen are.
We have a lot of musicians in the room tonight, and we’d now like to invite a very special musician to play a short interlude. This is Kristen’s father Mr. Bill Jones, and he’s going to play a piece called “The Swan” by Camille Saint-Saens [Sa-SON]. Kristen used to play this piece on cello with her father accompanying her, and he’s graciously offered to play it for us all now.
Thank you, Mr. Jones. So - To reflect rob & Kristen’s musical life, an artist in Pennsylvania has helped them create these two symbols of their Love. Two rings made with two materials. Rob’s guitar is made of a modern, light-weight, strong but brittle, woven material called carbon fiber. You can take a torch to it and it won’t burn, but it resonates strongly.
Kristen’s cello is made of maple – something humans have been using for thousands of years. Highly-figured, beautiful and dense, but flammable, a hard wood that bends. A tone wood that can be sharp and piercing, but also warm and human. There are plenty of metaphors we can get from both of those mediums.
rob’s ring is carbon fiber on the outside, and maple on the inside - closest to his skin. Kristen’s ring is the reverse, with maple on the outside and carbon fiber on the inside. So today, we take these two materials and these two rings and we bind these two people together.
Rob - as you place this ring on Kristen’s finger, please repeat after me:
Kristen, I give you this ring………………. (rob repeats)
As a symbol of my abiding love for you……………..
of choosing to share my life’s journey with you…………..
and of my knowing that in marrying you……………….
I shall become much more than I am…………………
Kristen - as you place this ring on Rob’s finger, please repeat after me:
Rob, I give you this ring……………….(Kristen repeats)
As a symbol of my abiding love for you……………..
of choosing to share my life’s journey with you…………..
and of my knowing that in marrying you……………….
I shall become much more than I am…………………
rob and Kristen have also written their own vows to each other, so we’ll let Rob go first:
VOWS n stuff
It’s good that we’re all gathered here at this moment – because it’s not an easy one. Weddings are not just affirmations of Life and Love between the two people with their names on the cards, weddings remind us of all those relationships that literally make every one of us possible. We are all not just part of rob and Kristen’s story – not even just a part of one another’s story here in this room – but we are a part of humanity’s story as a whole.
Among our friends we’ve got an affirmation. It’s a little nerdy, but it’s a powerful one when you think about it. When we want to affirm all in one voice, our strength and support and firm WILL – we cry out SO SAY WE ALL! Please join me as we finish our vows together:
Let this day remind us to treat one another well.
SO SAY WE ALL.
Let this ceremony remind us that we will support rob and Kristen in good times and in bad.
SO SAY WE ALL.
Let this wedding remind us that we are ALL family, and that we will support and encourage everyone around us.
SO SAY WE ALL.
And now let this day show that rob Hinkal and Kristen Jones – hereby recognized by myself and those gathered with us, by the power invested in me by the state of Maryland and the internet – I do declare you husband and wife!
SO SAY WE ALL!
Rob, you may now kiss your cellist!
(kiss and applause)
Ladies and gentleman, I present to you for the first time as a married couple, Rob and Kristen! Let’s eat!