I’ve taken on a new job: Wedding officiant.

My sister-in-law, Mia, and new brother-in-law, Adam, asked if I’d preside over their wedding. I love them both, and attention. The answer was an immediate yes.

The wedding Sunday outside Buffalo was spectacular. The two of them were iridescent and so stunningly in love. The venue was a postcard come to life. The hora was high-flying.

Constructing the ceremony took every day of a full month. I’d finish my paying job and fire up my personal laptop to do research, a bit of writing, and lots of reading for inspiration. It was a fun and necessary change of pace from my work covering the White House.

I learned a lot about myself and my craft in the process, and I have lessons to share, if only so I can return to them when I need a kick in the pants. I hope you’ll find them helpful:

You can edit bad writing, but you can’t edit nothing. When in doubt, get it on the page. Bad sentences, poor grammar, faulty word choice, blanks to fill in. Doesn’t matter. Get it all on the page. Devise a system for yourself to make clear what you want to come back to. For me, that started in all caps, but eventually I highlighted in a different color because I was paranoid about missing something.

Writer’s block isn’t real. It’s a choice. Choose to not have it. I start half my stories with "This story is about …” I did the same thing for the brief ketubah service before the formal ceremony: “This is the start of the ketubah service where we will…” I went back and changed it later.

Ask your subjects for help. Their input will make things easier.

But keep a mental scrapbook of things you like. You were asked to speak (or write) because people trust you and your taste. So lean on it. For this wedding, I recalled a poem my Uncle Alan read at my grandfather’s funeral: “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon. I loved it. It was perfect. But I can’t read a poem about death at a wedding. So I searched (and searched and searched) for something that scratched the same itch but evoked joy and wonder. I landed on “Messenger” by Mary Oliver.

Ai is overrated. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. My conversations with Claude helped lead me to “Messenger.” But Ai doesn’t know the bride and groom. It’s not a subject matter expert. If you lean on Ai too much, parts of your brain that you need to stay sharp will atrophy. Fight the urge to ask a machine to do it for you. Writing is not a menial task. Do it yourself.

Every time you edit, save as a new file. Don’t rely on “revision history” if you’re writing in the cloud. You may be three drafts down the line and decide you really do want that phrase from when you first started writing. Make it easy on yourself to go back and find it.

Don’t have regrets. If there’s something you want to write, or want to say, say it. Don’t try to get fancy with structure or create devices or motifs. Don’t feel like you have to shoehorn anecdotes. Let those come naturally, or let them emerge while you’re editing. When in doubt, say what you feel, and feel what you say. Let the visceral emotions in your gut be your guide. Everything else is just a garnish. And, at the end of the day, if some of those feelings don’t fit, find a way to repurpose them or add them to your mental scrapbook.

You’re allowed to dislike things. I personally hate when someone recalls a deceased loved one and says, “They’re here with us.” No, they are not. So I didn’t say that. Of those departed, I said, “We carry them with us in spirit and memory.” It’s petty, but it’s personal taste. There will be things you hate or find as pet peeves. Excise them.

Give clear direction. When the bride comes down the aisle, ask people to stand. Not everyone will — I was surprised by that, so I ad-libbed a line. It threw me off slightly, and I wish I’d put it into my ceremony script. When certain guests needed to approach the chuppah for readings, even though I told them their cue to come up, they didn’t. So I had to ad-lib another line: “Would those reading blessings please join us now?” Another small thing that threw me slightly.

Tell people what to feel, even if phrased as a suggestion. Example: “I’d like to set a tone of wonder, stillness and joy.” Yes, you can tell (or nudge) people how to feel, and let them interpret what comes next.

Be open to surprise, even surprising yourself. I showed the bride and groom everything in my script, but asked to hold back the Mary Oliver poem. I wanted them to hear it for the first time under the chuppah and to create a moment of transcendent surprise. It worked, so I’ve been told. Even if they disassociated for part of the reading, it created conditions for a moment that otherwise could not have occurred in the same authentic way.

As you write, some things you throw on the page will surprise you, too. I wrote the ring exchange for the bride and groom — what should have been the end of the ceremony — and then kept going. I wrote a different version of the ring exchange for the congregation:

And then, again, I kept going. I didn’t mean to, but the next two lines just appeared on the page before me.

It surprised and delighted the bride and groom when I showed them during our script editing sessions. And it surprised and delighted the congregation. The groom’s mother, the charming Anne, shot me a look as she realized she’d get to be part of pronouncing her son and daughter-in-law husband and wife: You clever boy, she seemed to say.

Why did it work?

The rest of the ceremony and the writing led to this moment: It was organized. It moved at a decent pace. The Mary Oliver poem and set-up helped establish gravity and authority. And, of course, at a wedding, everyone is very eager for that first kiss. This surprise was positioned strategically just ahead of the wedding’s most climactic moment.

It was truly an honor to officiate this wedding. And it was a task that was personally meaningful in addition to contributing a small part to Mia and Adam’s special day.

If you found these “chuppah lessons” helpful, or if you hate them, or if you have a news tip, drop me a line: [email protected] or securely on Signal: jacobbogage.87. And follow me on Bluesky (jacobbogage.bsky.social) and LinkedIn.