What I’ve Learned About Love From Marrying Over 200 Couples

I got the idea for this article a while ago when I had reached the hundred couple mark, but I thought that because it had been so many years since I was in a relationship of my own, that I didn’t have the authority to write it. I was wrong.  One of my great loves is dancing.  And every dance teacher I’ve ever had asks their students to watch the choreography first before trying the dance.  There is so much that we can learn through watching, listening, taking it all in. Things we miss if we don’t have our eyes open to the big picture.  If there is any reason why God has graced me with the gift of witnessing and being close to love as it takes so many beautiful and different forms in all the couples I meet, I hope that it may be to teach me something of what it is, share its blessing and guide my own steps in its sacred dance.   

Speaking of which…in Love, sometimes we’re gonna have to improv.  Let’s face it, life is not choreographed.  Couples are thrown all kinds of curve balls which they must learn how to navigate together.  Like rainclouds on their wedding day in Hawai’i.  It’s rare, but it happens.  And it’s how I found myself with one of the sweetest couples standing on an overlook on the side of Maui’s dormant volcano under a pink sky.  None of us were prepared for the elevation and it gets cold at 8-10,000 feet when the sun goes down!  I will never forget their smiles and red cheeks and the vows they shared that weren’t even in English but had both me and the photographer in tears.  And I think about how the groom warmed the bride’s hands and fingers with his own before putting the ring on and the way they whispered their vows to each other and for a moment everything disappeared except for them and that pink sky and their being moved in and with and through each other. That kind of moment opens up when the dancers not only trust each other but trust what is bigger, in that thing moving them.  

Which is to say…Love is much bigger than we think.  It has us.  It holds us. Like the music itself.  But bigger. The music and the space and the dance and the dancers all at once.  It moves through all of us and celebrates as we celebrate with each other in couples of all faiths and colors and sexual orientation.  I’ve married two young brides who showed up in gorgeous black wedding gowns in a forest by the ocean dripping with ivy.  In one interfaith ceremony, the bride’s Christian father and the Groom’s Muslim father each shared blessings from their respective traditions. I’ve married couples of all combinations of color and ethnicity from all parts of the globe.  I’ve married young doe-eyed lovers and silver haired beauties finding their second or third or fourth chance at partnership.  

I’ve witnessed golden filled skies reflecting in the water, double rainbows appearing out of nowhere and whales breaching, waves crashing all at just the right and perfect moments during ceremonies as if nature was reflecting not just sunsets but something much more precious.  These ho’ailona, or “signs from spirit” are one of the ways I have come to know and see with my own eyes, that our dance is not just ours and not only happening with our beloveds.  We belong to a bigger pulse; one that is vast and unfathomable.  One that has rhythm and passion and swag.

And humor.  That’s another thing I’ve noticed…Love is kind of silly.  With its dazzling innocence and child-like sense of wonder, love has the undoubtable power to draw us into a realm of deep belly laughter, twinkling eyes and perma-grin bliss.  Whether it lasts a day, a year or a lifetime, we are twirled into a world where our inhibitions no longer hold and we get a taste of that effervescent, elusive cosmic giggle.  Have you ever been to a wedding where the bride or groom (or both) can not stop giggling during the ceremony?  I have! Many times.  Sometimes it’s nerves or excitement and other times it seems to be sheer glee. Something in them that remembers a very pure thing, like a baby making sounds for the first time, adding their part to that great song.  I’ve heard vows about bacon and innumerable nicknames and fragments of the kind of inside jokes only two people in the whole world will ever know about.  That kind of intimacy is precious.  It draws us in close not just to each other but to that in each other which is utterly whole and holy.  

That’s why love is sacred.  It calls us out of the shadows of our limited notions of self and into the greatness of our true nature.  Through this partnered dance we remember we are souls dancing. Inspiring and offering good company on the journey of life.  I remember a beautiful ceremony I did in the labyrinth of the Sacred Garden in Haiku, Maui.  No photographers, no guests, just myself and the couple weaving intention into every moment.  I stood at the center and each of them took their time, mindfully walking the snakelike path.  Many blessings and prayers were said and something about it felt so close to the truth of what romantic love can be.  On the other end of the spectrum, I remember walking into a small but lavish event at the incomparable Haiku Mill.  As I walked to take my place on the stone staircase flanked by waterfalls through ivy-laden walls under dripping light-filled chandeliers to deliver a ceremony that would be translated into Chinese, a lone harpist played the theme song to (I kid you not) Game of Thrones and I was overcome with a sense of wordless wonder and awe.  The sacred can be discovered anywhere.  The thing that brings us together for these moments and offers an anchor, a ground, a safe harbor is also the very thing that lets us soar.

Because in Love, we remember we are free.  We remember the part of ourselves that is limitless and suddenly, we are poised to take on the world.  Anything feels possible, any movement requiring any degree of strength or flexibility.  I’ve heard stories from couples overcoming incredible hardships together like illness and poverty and unexpected deaths of loved ones, distance and separation, addiction and mental illness.  Often they attribute the fortitude and grace they found to change, heal and grow to each other but I think this power lies within all of us all the time.  Love just taps us on the shoulder and nudges us to look and to find our inner reservoir.  There is no leap too great to make and if we are lucky, somewhere in mid-air, heart open, arms and legs in full extension, we realize that even if we stumble and fall, we have arrived. 

Becauselove is worth the risk.  It’s scary. I’ve been afraid.  To put myself out there.  To feel the pain of loss and rejection.  Perhaps that’s why it’s been so long since I’ve had a loving relationship of my own.  Each and every couple I meet however, reminds me that it’s worth it.  And more often than not, it’s the small everyday risks they’ve taken that have led them to their beloveds.  The phone call out of the blue, the second date they weren’t sure about, telling their best friend how they really felt about them.  To have courage literally means to have heart, le coeur.  So then to have courage in love, we must trust and open and surrender to our own.  

When I started college, I wanted to keep dancing like I had throughout my youth. I tried out for the dance team but didn’t make the cut.  I was devastated.  It was many years until I danced again.  When I did it was scary and exciting.  I was nervous and thrilled.  The rhythm of drums and feet was a current bigger than my body and even though there were steps to follow there was also space to let something come through.  My face glowed red and my cheeks hurt from smiles I couldn’t control.  With each movement I made a living prayer of myself.  Touching the ground, I flew.  And sometimes fell.  And sometimes got the steps wrong.  And sometimes got hurt.  But I fucking danced.  

And it wasn’t “worth the wait.” Because it already lived inside me my whole life.  All of it. Love already lives inside us.  All of it.  All of us.  And so the most important thing I’ve learned in this dance the last few years, after witnessing and marrying and learning from over two hundred couples, what I’ve learned about love is not that it is as they say, “worth the wait” but that love, my friends, love is already here.