Look around us today, at every face you know, every hand you've held,
every heart you've touched.  With that touch, a single gossamer thread
has joined you to another.  And their own threads join them to still
more people, twining back and forth and around and around, holding us
all together.  As you pull one person closer, you pull us all a little
closer.  As you raise one person up, you raise all of us a little higher.
None of us stands alone.

Today, in the center of this tangle of threads stand Daniel and Vicka. 
My thread with Vicka is as old as any thread I have here.  And though
it is old, and has sometimes been stretched very thin, it still ties us.
And through her and Daniel, each of us is now bound to each of us.  Let
us not forget that joy and that responsibility.

For the strongest of threads today, that which bind Daniel and Vicka, is
still but gossamer.  The strength of their bond is not that single thread,
it is many threads woven from many people -- old family and new, old friends
and new, old loves and new -- woven skillfully together.  Today, Daniel and
Vicka are the weavers, spinning each of our threads into a luminous line,
weaving us all together into the fabric of their love.  We are all part of
what holds them together, even as they remain a part of us.  We each, with
our love, raise them up, even as we raise ourselves.  Each fragile thread
has its place in their tapestry.  But it is the magic of their love that
chooses the design.

So I propose a toast: to the threads, and to the weavers.

(by gunther anderson.  thank you, gunther.  you always have the best words,
and we'll anytime drink to that :)