Almost Autumn Wedding at the Queens Botanical Garden

I’ve professed love for the Queens Botanical Gardens before in warm weather with not a drop of rain.  I’ll do so again today because raindrops plummeted from the sky on Sunday.  At the QBG, couples have two choices in rainy weather.  They can move the ceremony completely inside into the green auditorium.  Or they can marry underneath the contemporary overhang that collects rainwater to use in the building.  Janice and Roger opted for the second choice.

When I first met Janice, she felt a pre-written ceremony was best.  A few weeks prior to the wedding, I received their love story with a request to make the ceremony a bit personal.  To forgo the extra honorarium couples usually give for personalized ceremonies, Janice left the text up to me.  I added this introduction to their ceremony, which brought many smiles to the faces of the bride, groom, and their guests.

Family and friends, as many of you know, this Scorpio and Sagitarius have remained by each other’s sides for years in more ways than astrological. Janice and Roger became friends in high school and then began dating while Janice was in her junior and senior years. They departed for a little exploring and then reunited officially during Janice’s sophomore year of college.

Through all their shared and individual adventures, they’ve learned that they are not perfect people. Like all couples, they fight and bicker. Despite these highs and lows, though, they manage to always be there for each other. Their mutual love, trust, friendship, and sense of humor binds them together.

In truth, Janice and Roger began a family informally by adopted a dog, Jessy, nine years ago in October 2001. The steadfast commitment, care, and support Janice and Roger show to Jessy are wonderfully symbolic of the values they cherish.

They have differences: Janice is loud and Roger is quiet. Yet these differences provide a sense of balance to their lives. Their love for each other reveals their willingness to learn from the world and each other; at one point, Roger even taught Janice how to ride a bike. Best of all, they have fun together. Their trip to the grand Bahamas was the first of many fabulous vacations. In daily life too, they have adventures seeking out the best food in New York.

More recently, they bought a home together. With the same last names – Lam – it seems that this beautiful couple have been married for many years already. Today, before all of you, they will celebrate their friendship and love by uniting their lives in marriage.