Dennis John Vogen

In Celebration of Olivia Cashman & Corey Lott

June 22nd, 2024 at 4:00 pm

Ceremony Details

[Before the Ceremony, it is possible to let the RECEPTION know to stay seated, to not use their cell phones, etc. if requested]

PROCESSIONAL

• Guests are seated

INVOCATION

OFFICIANT to the RECEPTION

Good afternoon!

Dear family and close friends, thank you all for gathering today to share in this joyful occasion. We are here together to unite Olivia Cashman and Corey Lott in marriage.

Before we do that, though, I would like to say a few words about the bride and groom.

Their love story has echoes of classic tales like West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet. Not because of any feuding families or tragic deaths, no, but because their story begins with two gangs:

The Lakeville Boys and the Chaska Girls.

I’ll let you figure out who is which.

Liv, a Chaska Girl, having recently lived in Michigan, remembers feeling interested in a new Lakeville Boy who, on the night they met, was wearing a Detroit sweatshirt. He seemed mysterious, having appeared out of nowhere, and she was dying to know his connection to the city. After a little digging, the truth was revealed: he had never been to Detroit. But he clearly knew what he was doing wearing that shirt.

Their relationship grew and they discovered how much they loved doing together: bike rides, park picnics, brewery patio hang outs, camping, concerts, traveling, to eventually building a home life together with their cats and potential room for a wiener dog. Think about it.

As they did more together, they loved more together, and they loved one another more and more.

I’ve known both of them for years, and there is no way I could describe them better than they describe each other.

Liv describes Corey as thoughtful, funny, loyal, exciting, reliable, comforting, humble, and patient. She is in awe of how you stand up for what you believe in and treat others as you would like to be treated, and admires how you can express strong opinions with grace and without being judgemental.

Corey describes Liv as caring, fun, compassionate, down-to-earth, confident, carefree, unpretentious, and consistently late. He says you make this life a better and brighter place for everyone who knows you, with a smile and a laugh that lights up a room. You, at least, keep him laughing, even when he doesn’t necessarily want to. He appreciates your sincere drive to help any- and everybody, especially those who are less fortunate.

They describe each other as genuine, honest, independent, open-minded, respectful, empathetic, loving, and selfless, which are the qualities people spend their entire lives trying to be, and trying to find a person who has them to be with. Nobody here has to tell you two how lucky you are.

Liv, when Corey first met you, he wanted to talk to you for hours. And now that you have talked for hours, listening to vinyl and each other so late into so many nights, he still doesn’t want to stop, for the rest of his life.

Corey, when Liv first met you, you deceived her about your relationship with Detroit. But she forgave you and you should really think about that wiener dog.

Before we get you two officially married, I would like to read a passage from Either/Or by Kierkegaard:

“Over the centuries have not knights and adventurers experienced incredible toil and trouble in order to find quiet peace in a happy marriage. Over the centuries have not writers and readers of novels labored through one volume after another in order to end with a happy marriage. And has not one generation after the other again and again faithfully endured four acts of troubles and entanglements if only there was any probability of a happy marriage in the fifth act?

“But through these enormous efforts very little is accomplished for the glorification of marriage. For the unhealthiness of these books is that they end where they should begin. So let Don Juan keep his romantic bower and the knight his nocturnal sky and stars—if he sees nothing beyond them. Marriage has its heaven even higher. And it is not the earthly heaven that arches over marriage but the heaven of the spirit. So beautiful is marriage. And the sensuous is by no means repudiated, but is ennobled.

“Indeed I confess it—perhaps it is wrong of me—frequently when I think of my own marriage, the notion that it will cease to be awakens in me an inexplicable sadness, as does the thought—sure as I am that in another life I will live with her to whom my marriage joined me—that this will give her to me in another way, and the contrast that was a condition of our marriage will be annulled. Nevertheless it comforts me that I know—and I shall recollect—that I have lived with her in the most intimate, the most beautiful association that life on earth provides.”

Adapted from Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

“The Esthetic Validity of Marriage” (Either/Or, volume II)

I usually don’t condone gang activity, but I think we can all agree that, in this case, we can allow it, and it’s good to see two former gang members on the other side, having found love in their respective hopeless places.

Their daydreams and hopes for the future echo one another’s: they both want to build a life full of love and respect, of mutual and unconditional support, growing and evolving both individually and together; they want to celebrate their wins but, much more importantly, be there for each other in their losses, which occur with more frequency; they are happy to loudly declare to you today that they have found their partner, their best friend, and the person who they call their home.

I speak for the room when I say we all love you and we are blessed to be able to share this day with you.

Now let us begin.

DECLARATION OF INTENT

OFFICIANT to COREY:

Do you, Corey Lott, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to live together in matrimony, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for as long as you both shall live?

COREY to LIV

I do.

OFFICIANT to LIV

Do you, Olivia, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to live together in matrimony, to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for as long as you both shall live?

LIV to COREY

I do.

RINGS EXCHANGE

OFFICIANT TO THE RECEPTION

Olivia and Corey have chosen rings to exchange with each other as a symbol of their unending love.

OFFICIANT to COREY

Corey, as you place this ring on Olivia's finger, please repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed, and pledge you my love, now and forever.

• COREY REPEATS THE PHRASE AS THEY PLACE THE RING ON OLIVIA’S FINGER.

OFFICIANT to LIV

Olivia, as you place this ring on Corey's finger, please repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed, and pledge you my love, now and forever.

• OLIVIA REPEATS THE PHRASE AS THEY PLACE THE RING ON COREY'S FINGER.

PRONOUNCEMENT

OFFICIANT to the RECEPTION

By the authority vested in me by the State of Minnesota, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife.

You may now kiss the bride!

RECESSIONAL

End of the Wedding Ceremony.