TravisBedard.com

Actor, Puppeteer, and Teaching Artist

Sometimes the Show Isn’t Over When It Ends

Megan and I are theatre folk. I much more than she, but we both have spent  an inordinate amount of time in darkened rooms playing pretend. More to the point, a huge portion of presenting any show is simply event planning, so when faced with a wedding we mostly defaulted to planning it the way you would plan any other show.

Megan asked two costume designers she loved to work on her dress, and we cast a camera-ready, battle seasoned improviser as Preacher along with a six member chorus bridal party, two readers, and four musicians. All straight out of central casting.

We wrote the wedding with the Preacher via video chat and a Google document, we cataloged all of our shenanigans in a wiki and Megan walked down the aisle to a song written by the inimitable Adam Hilton and the organic, free range Boone Graham for the first show Will and I ever created together.

David Bowie, and red socks (and Sox) and Lost and the cats all got a shout out, Ani Difranco was sung at the break and the readings were Neruda and L’Engle.

All of which is to say, the day was as us as a day could possibly be. A beautiful place filled with 100 loved ones and not a stranger in sight. A day made by the hands of friends, a gift we could never possibly repay. I say that it’s one of my favorite days, because I like to leave room for the idea that I may have forgotten something… but I’m pretty sure it’s the best day I’ve ever had.

And at the end?
At the end of the best day I ever had?
I got to begin the rest of my life with the best partner I could have hoped for.
It’s not just that we are well matched.
(though we are)
It’s that we both want to be in this relationship. We both are willing to work on whatever needs working on. So every day we are better matched than the day before.

From the L’Engle reading:

“Ultimately there comes a time when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created. To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling.”

I just never expected this co-creation to be so easy, or so fun.

Megan asked last night if I’m ready for another 50 years of this…
I am. I really really am.

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5 thoughts on “Sometimes the Show Isn’t Over When It Ends

  1. Just wonderful.  What is the L’Engle reading from?, I’m not familiar with it.

  2. Finally got around to reading this, Travis. Just beautiful. Cheers, friend!

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