Nico: what does a wedding officiant know about marriage?

We talk to Nico Raineau, a professional wedding officiant, who takes notes on our love story as he prepares a mock wedding ceremony for us. We learn about the unusual world of wedding officiants, we describe our weird and distinctly un-vibey first date, a surprise kiss in the rare books section of a bookstore, and Hinge-gate: the first big moment where we had to really assess our relationship. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily muse on if going through a fake ceremony might make us feel closer, or further, from wanting to get legally married.

If you liked Nico's vibe, you can learn more and get in touch here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I'm like on hinge, seeing who matched with me. I was very curious. And I see that she has updated her hinge with like a pithy new funny remark. And I like freak out. Do you remember what you had written?

SPEAKER_06 0:12

I had made it more like San Francisco, because I was back in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

It was sort of more local. Hurts me to this day.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Welcome to Should We Get Married.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

My name is Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

My name is Max and Gerecki.

SPEAKER_05 0:32

And in this podcast, we're trying to figure out if we should get legally married to each other.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Or stay dating forever.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

What's up with people playing? It's so cool these days.

SPEAKER_05 0:45

Today's guest is Nico Reynaud. Nico is a professional wedding officiant who is going to learn our love origin story.

SPEAKER_06 0:52

And then in a future episode, he's going to do a fake wedding ceremony with us so we can see what that feels like.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_06 1:00

Maxon, why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_04 1:01

When you buy a pair of shoes, you go to the shoe store and you slip the shoe on to see if it fits your foot. And you and I had this idea of what if we tried out a ceremony or tried out getting married or a wedding to see if it fits our relationship.

SPEAKER_06 1:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

We're going to be doing that with Nico. And today he's like doing his intake of us where he's learning our story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22

We've spent a lot of time in the weeds on the logistics of legal marriage. And this is a chance for us to zoom out and explain how we met and what the beginning of our love was like.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Yeah. And then in a future episode, he's actually going to use all that information to create a wedding ceremony that we'll go through to try and see if this fits our relationship.

SPEAKER_06 1:43

Also, I've heard stories of people being like, whoa, I was walking down the aisle and I realized I shouldn't be doing this. And I wonder if either of us will have a reaction of like, oh no, I shouldn't be doing this. That we can't preempt before a hundred of our family and friends are in the room. Or maybe we'll feel like we should definitely do this. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Do you think that your heart will beat and your boots will quake and quiver the way that people describe getting married? Or do you think because it's a quote unquote fake ceremony, you're not going to experience any of that?

SPEAKER_06 2:11

I don't think I'll feel nervous, but I might feel something. I might have a reaction of being like, ugh, this is not me, or huh, that's a little more me than I thought.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Okay. So drawn to it or or pushed away from it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:20

What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Yeah, I mean, I think that I will feel nervous. I often don't feel stuff till I'm like in the midst of it. And by putting myself in the midst of it, I will get a taste for how it feels.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

All right. Emily, tell us about Nico. What's his story?

SPEAKER_06 2:33

Nico is a professional wedding officiant. His job is to actually get people married. Yeah. He particularly specializes in like rom-com weddings. So he'll learn a couple's love story and make it sound very rom-com-y.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Yeah. Yeah. An officiant is the person who stands up between the two people and like says all the stuff at a wedding. There's a million different kinds. There's like super religious officiants, then there's uh officiants who are a family member who got ordained by like a little church or whatever. And then there are people who do it really professionally who try and really bring a joie de vive of their own sort of style and type. And yeah, Nico's is bringing his romantic comedy script writing experience to people's love stories, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Yeah. Got to start as a script writer in Hollywood working at rom com. And he pivoted them to real-life rom-com scripts, which I love. I love seeing people's journeys and how they evolve.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

With that, here is our conversation with Nico Reyno, professional wedding officiant. Here we go. First thing that we wanted to say was thank you. You are a grand synthesizer of love.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

I appreciate that introduction. In my first consults with couples, let's just play that clip. The grand synthesizer of love. I think that's gonna be added to my website. I love that. I think I've kind of always been a romantic, because I don't know if that's because I was like a little nerdy kid and I like grew up watching stories about heroes who fall in love and get the girl. I don't know what it is, but um, there's something compelling and relatable about love stories in general. Yeah. And that's exactly what I do as a professional wedding officiant. Instead of writing fake love stories, I get to tell real love stories. I get to know people on like a personal level, and then I get to perform live in front of their loved ones, and we get to share this experience and make this core memory together. And that's something that's very gratifying and fulfilling for me.

SPEAKER_06 4:30

You know, we do all have romantic comedy stories, and any like sort of dating snafu or like crazy thing that happened on a first Tinder date or something, like we all have these inside of us, and it's just a matter of like stretching it out and building some suspense and kind of relishing in the absurdity of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

So absolutely. It's all in storytelling craft.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Okay, well, but to put like my hater hat on for a second, you could also say like these stories are unrealistic. Do you think there's an element that's potentially setting them up for disappointment?

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I think the answer is no, because ultimately the love stories that I tell and how I turn your story into romantic comedy, it comes from you. I'm telling your story with your anecdotes and your personality. I'm not really making anything up. I'm taking creative liberties to like make a good joke or you know to make it particularly entertaining, but it's your truth. So all I'm doing is showing you that you already have the story in the love and the relationship that's gonna carry you through. And you don't talk about it in your officiating.

SPEAKER_04 5:36

You don't say stuff like there will be times where life will get really hard and you're gonna hate each other. Like that's just that's like a bit of a downer, even though it's maybe realistic.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

I do have a section where when we get to the part where we're exchanging rings and we're making our marriage vows, I do talk about how marriage is a commitment and it's a renewed choice that you have to make every day. And I've got this great colleague, Bethel Nathan, who says, I have a hundred percent success rate because when they leave the ceremony, they're married. Like that's my job.

SPEAKER_06 6:06

What happens after that is not up to us. So you have officiated many weddings. Do you have a general sense of how many?

SPEAKER_02 6:13

About like 50 or so at this point in the past few years since starting my business. I have colleagues who have done 600. I have colleagues who have done 2000 who have like been in it for a really long time. Whoa. Whoa.

SPEAKER_06 6:27

Yeah. And do any stand out for any reason? Maybe something crazy happened.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

You know, the wedding business is uh it's unpredictable. Like I've had the paramedics called during a wedding, but the ones that stand out are the ones when I I really feel like not only the couple, but all their loved ones are just fully engaged in the ceremony or not having like the time of their life. Yeah. A little bit of what I do feels like stand-up comedy. Because like I I prepare something and I think it's gonna kill, and I think it's funny, and you get there, and the crowd is just not vibing with people.

SPEAKER_06 7:01

Yeah, you got one shot, and there's either some alchemy that's gonna make it kill, or it's just it doesn't hit that day.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

I have like opening remarks that are pretty much the same. And that feels like I've refined it like a stand-up comedy routine. Like there's one joke that gets a laugh every time because I've like refined it. What's the joke? Basically, it's like a lot of people they don't want people to have phones out. So I'll say, like, hey everyone, LA and Maxon want everyone to be fully present with them during the cinematic ceremony. They want to see your smiling faces, not your cracked phone cases. Rest assured. We have a talented photographer here with us. Say hi, Ramoy. Hi, Ramoy. Ramoy is very good at his job, so no offense, but Emily and Maxon do not need any of your poorly framed Android photos. So, like that, like like Man, you've said that a lot of times. But it's the Android photo, it's like I don't think the Android photo line is particularly funny, but there's something about it that like you guys laugh. It works every time. Yeah, on team iPhone. I also just think and people like making fun of Androids. I think the Android is actually the joke.

SPEAKER_06 8:00

Totally. Great underdog of our modern world.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Yeah. You mentioned that the officiant community is like very quirky and interesting. And what what what have you heard in terms of the way other people do their officiating? Anything stand out there?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

I've discovered this subculture of people, some of whom have been doing this for 20 years and have really kind of like blazed the trail, who are incredible. They deeply care about people, and they're all a little weird. Because like I don't think you get into this job without being like a little kooky. I have a colleague, she's the wedding witch of Salem, Massachusetts. If you want to get married in like a cemetery, like you know, you call her. That's her thing. I also have colleagues who they specifically like to do elopements, and they'll marry you out in the middle of the forest in like the Pacific Northwest. My buddy Jimmy will go on a three-hour hike with you into the middle of nowhere in some national forest and like marry you next to a waterfall. Wow. Like it can be whatever you want it to be in. There are a lot of people in this country in particular that are trying to limit what love looks like and what a marriage is and who can be a part of that institution. And we as professional officials find ourselves kind of on the front lines of defending marriage rights and making sure that they're available to everybody. And we know that that is not a right that is exclusive to only certain people. Like it's a human right.

SPEAKER_06 9:36

I think there's some part of me or our conversations with Max in where it's like, well, this is a tradition that everyone in my family lineage has done. My grandmother got married, my great-grandparents got married, great-great-grandparents, and there's something really beautiful about continuing that. So there's something beautiful about honoring a relationship in that way. How do you feel about tradition? Is it good to get less traditional? Is it good to be more traditional?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

I think it's a meaningful thing to move through life, have your own experiences, do it your way, live according to your authenticity, but still engage in something that culturally we all do as human beings. And marriage is kind of one of those cool things.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

There is something really powerful about saying wedding that like gets people to get on a plane and like cancel plans, despite it also being a bit like there can be other milestones in our life to celebrate, but culture hasn't necessarily deemed them plain trippable.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, we've all kind of agreed that this one is plain trippable for whatever reason. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Nico has generously, generously offered to lend us his beautiful services. Tell us about what we are doing here today, Nico.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah. So basically, I'm going to interview you the same way that I would a couple who has hired me to officiate for them or invited me to officiate for them. And I will then write a fake ceremony for the two of you, a symbolic love commitment ceremony that is in no way legal. What if we got accidentally married? Oh my god.

unknown 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

And what it would feel like to have, you know, a rom-com ceremony. So let me just dive in with perhaps, you know, one of the most important questions. How did you guys meet? What is your meet cue? Let's go back to the to the very beginning. How do how did your paths cross?

SPEAKER_06 11:27

Lee, kick us off, Nexon.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Emily and I met originally many, many years ago in high school, where we never really met each other, but we knew of each other. But then we met on a dating app called Hinge four years ago, and Emily messaged me, and she wrote, What was your note to beautiful note to me, Emily? What was that all about?

SPEAKER_06 11:48

It's just an A.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Like A, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

What a pickup line.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

I hated it as a message. Yeah. I was like, this is the equ this is the dating app equivalent of like someone walking into a room like this, like, eh.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

So why didn't so why did you respond or how did you respond?

SPEAKER_04 12:10

It was basically me saying, hey, I always wanted to get to know you more. Uh like what's your life like? Uh, do you want to go out? And then we went out. Does that sound accurate to you? That does not sound accurate to me. Okay, what's that? What's that? What's the accurate story?

SPEAKER_06 12:26

In my head, I was like, Maxon from high school, what's up? Hey. But kind of more like, whoa, crazy seeing you here. But I kind of like forgot that we were in like a dating app environment. And then we exchanged some messages, and you were with someone from our high school, and you sent me a video of you guys together. So to me, we're like catching up.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Shout out, Darcian.

SPEAKER_06 12:45

Shout out, Darshan. And we made a plan to hang out. Again, in my estimation, we're like catching up, getting to know each other post-high school. I kind of just didn't have a date framework in my mind for some reason. So I brought a bunch of people. I brought my friend. My sister came to. I like pull up with this posse.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Your sister, your friend came to the lunch, which was like a picnic lunch on a beach, and she like laid out a blanket and put all these different foods down onto the blanket. And it was like me and her and her friend Connie. And Emily didn't introduce any of the foods, nor did she remove the lids from any of the foods. And I, we just didn't eat any of the food. They just stayed there and then they got put away. Like we didn't eat anything. And the whole time I was like, all right, like I'm ready to eat the food. And then we took a swim. I I was really drawn to you because one, you reached out to me on the app. I know that you say that you're reaching out as a friend. That doesn't make any sense as a dating app, but whatever. Two, I like uh that you like initiated the swim. It wasn't a particularly sunny day. It was like kind of cloudy. It was also not a beautiful beach. We're kind of in a bit of a like a marina. So she just wanted to go for a swim in the marina. There was some sand. Okay. I thought that was cool.

SPEAKER_06 13:58

Yeah, I would say that we had a pleasant time at the picnic. It wasn't like crazy sparks, but also there were other random people in the dynamic. So you would try to be asking me a question, but then you'd have to sort of open it up to the rest of the group with the thing.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Yeah, there were like strangers sitting nearby overhearing our conversation, like chiming in every so often. And that was disruptive the flow. Yeah. It was not an electric conversation. No, it was not like, oh my God, like I'm obsessed with this person.

SPEAKER_06 14:23

Yeah. I had like I had mentioned a book that I thought you'd really like that you hadn't read yet. And there was a bookstore right nearby where we were sitting at the marina. And so we walked over to the bookstore to go find the book. And my friend came and my sister came too, but they stayed outside. And in the back of the bookstore, there were like some rare books that were like many thousands of dollars in a glass case with ornamental covers on them. And in the back, it was kind of like cooler and dark and away from the hubbub of the fiction and new nonfiction in the front. And I like call Maxon over to the back to sort of look at the rare books. And then when we're back there, we have sort of like a little nice moment of chemistry and we start kissing each other in the back of the bookstore. This is like after an hour of knowing each other.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Yeah. And her sister's in the bookstore and her friend Connie's in the bookstore. And I did not think we were having a good date. I was like, there's no the food is not open. The vibes are weird. We're talking to the random strangers who are sitting near us on the blanket. Now we're at a bookstore. I'm excited for lunch later. That's kind of what I was thinking. And then she waves me over. I was like, oh, she's we're gonna like talk about a rare book. How interesting. I'm curious what book she wants to talk about. And I get back behind the bookcase and I'm like, oh, like she has like a I want to kiss you face on. That's very interesting. And then we and then we kiss. And I was like, oh, this is a okay, cool. It was a good day. I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

But that sounds to me like Emily initiated this kiss.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

A hundred percent accurate. Okay, completely initiated it. She like was standing there and then like grabbed me, or at least reached out to me. I was like, wow, this person is very action-oriented. I really like this. She's initiating the hinge thing, she's initiating the swim, she's initiating the kiss. This is amazing. From that moment, I was hooked. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

So that was okay. So then my follow-up to that is was there sort of a second date? What kind of happened after that? And like when did things become boyfriend, girlfriend, official, if you were.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

Yeah, the second date happened later that day. So we have the beautiful kiss. I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. I can't wait to continue hanging out. And then I have to do like a I'm like, hey, I have to like do a short work call. It's a very short work call. She's like, sure, no problem. We'll be here. I go outside, I get on the work call. The work call is like 21 minutes long. I'm like, okay, that's pretty reasonable. I go back inside. All three of them, they're nowhere to be found. They've completely left me. No note being like, hey, we're gonna go, we're gonna leave. And I was like, wow, I have no idea what's happening right now. This person kissed me. We had a beautiful moment of passion, we had this incredible like lightning strike of uh emotion. And then she just decided to ghost me at the bookstore and abscond back to wherever the hell she came from with these two people. And I don't know if I'm ever gonna see her again or hear from her again until later that night I texted you inviting you to something.

SPEAKER_06 17:16

Maxim was out there for someone else's engagement party, and he said, Do you want to come once the dancing starts, like after the sort of speeches and dinner? And I thought that sounded fun. So I came again with my friend.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

Okay, she brought her friend Connie again. Thank you, thank you, Connie.

SPEAKER_06 17:34

Shout out, Connie. And we had such a fun time doing the party together. It's like exactly how I love socializing, which is like come together, leave for a little bit, go talk to other people, come back, debrief what you've just done, bring each other into fun conversation, sort of be like a mining the party for fun people and fun chats. A lot of like leaving each other and then coming back, a lot of fun dancing. And at a certain point, I had to leave and we kissed again in the house.

SPEAKER_04 18:02

We were like, you have to leave, and we kind of ran upstairs to kind of get some more kissing done before you had to go because you had like a Uber in the cat. Your sister was coming or something like that. Oh, yeah, your sister came again. Your sister also came to the party.

SPEAKER_06 18:17

I roll deep.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

So we're kissing upstairs in like my friend's childhood bedroom. It felt like such a historic moment. We know we kissed once in the bookstore, but now we're kissing. And I'm like, this is really, really important. And I take out my phone and I start taking pictures of us kissing. Because in my heart, I was like, there's a pretty good chance that this like really goes somewhere. And I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't know her, and I also didn't have a particularly good conversation with her at the thing, but we had so much fun at the party, and it was so easy to like do, I don't know, life with her and socialize with her and be around her. And kissing her was so really, really felt like we fit together. And I don't know what I was thinking, but I took out my phone and I started taking selfies of us kissing and just like pictures of her, and I was I like wanted to remember like what her form was like. So I like put my hand down on her stomach, and I was like, this is sort of how big my hand is compared to like your body, as if I have to do like a scientific experiment to like find the scale. You must have thought I was totally nuts.

SPEAKER_06 19:24

I thought it was very unusual. I didn't think that much about it. And we love having those pictures, they're so sweet.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

They're nice. We're really sweaty in them. Maybe we'll we'll pop them up. But yeah, we were like drenched from dancing and walking around, and it was like summertime. So we're completely just completely drenched. And I have a bunch of pictures of us like very red-faced, kissing each other. And I also love that you didn't object. You were like, Oh, okay, that's fine. I kind of get it.

SPEAKER_06 19:51

Yeah, but then our true second date was like a week later. Maxon had left for a climbing trip the day after. He was in Colorado doing some mountaineering.

SPEAKER_04 20:01

Yeah. And you were staying out on Shelter Island, which is this island in Long Island with your family, and that's and then you went back to that.

SPEAKER_06 20:10

Yeah. And then a week later, Maxon comes to live in the house for like a week with my family and my sister. And we have this week-long second date where you're getting to know my family, it's the same time as you're getting to know me.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

I had no information about what I was getting into. We had only FaceTimed or called like once or twice during my week of rock climbing. She was like, Yeah, you should come out. And I was like, For how many days? She's like, let's just see. Like maybe one day. If it's like the vibe's weird, then they'll leave. And if the vibe is fun, then it's not. I'm like, all right, that sounds like a pretty good plan. So I I come out, I have no idea how long I'm gonna stay out there for because we don't know if we're gonna get along or not. And I have no idea who's there. And I show up at midnight and I walk in, and she's like, Okay, cool. Like my parents are upstairs. And then I just like I'm with her, and it's only her family. The friend is gone. It's me, Emily, Anya, her sister, Holly, her mom, and Robert, her dad. And we have the best time ever, and it's not weird at all. And they totally love me and accept me, and there's no like weird pressure. And we took pictures like we were like a real couple the day that I got there, like me and you and your dad being like, and at that time I was experimenting with a different kind of smile because I was like, look, what if I what if I like had like a different kind of smile, and I have the douchiest smile. It doesn't feel like me at all, but though those pictures are very classic. And look, it looks like we've known each other for a while. It looks like we have a uh a three-year extremely strained relationship in those pictures. Like it looks like we go back a long time and it's like not good going so well. That's that's that's what I would say. So that was then we spent the whole week together. So then Emily was living in California. She goes back to California. I'm living in New York City, I go back to New York City, we like resume our life, and I'm completely in love. I've met the person that I want to be with for this lifetime and the next lifetime and the next lifetime. I'm completely obsessed. We would like giggle and And like joke around and stuff all the time. We just create bits and do accents and have these like recurring things, and we like notice the same weird shit that other people say and we say it to each other later. And I was just so struck by the compatibility. So I had gone through this unbelievable transformative experience of falling in love in just a really short period of time. And I'm like, I know, I know who I want to be with. This is very simple. Like, this is the most incredible person I've ever met. And I can't believe that she wants to hang out with me. And I guess need to, I would like to be with her. And I thought she was on the same exact page as me until two weeks after we leave each other. I'm like on hinge, seeing who matched with me. I was very curious. And I see that she has updated her hinge with like a pithy new funny remark. And I like freak out. I have no idea what's going on. I thought that she experienced the same lightning strike of emotion as me. And here she is being clever about what she's gonna say to attract a new guy to like her profile. And it was very distressing for me.

SPEAKER_06 23:02

I remember you calling me and you were in your car and you'd like pulled over to the side of the road.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

And do you remember what you had written? It was a response to one of the inch questions. It was like, where do you find it?

SPEAKER_06 23:11

I made it more like San Francisco because I was back in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

It was sort of more local. It's like it hurts me to this day.

SPEAKER_06 23:21

Um, you were very calm, but you said, I'm really confused, and I just want to understand because I saw that you made some updates to your hinge. Uh to me, we experienced this phenomenon of nature, and I don't think you did anything bad because we never talked about it, and I'm not blaming you for anything, but I just want to like understand what this is all about because it feels confusing and not how I perceived our experience. And I think we took a couple days to not chat, and then we wrote each other these letters and we read them to each other, and they were very sweet. And I would love to read them out loud at some point on this. But I just really liked how you handled it. It was very non-accusatory. You were taking ownership for your own feelings, not sort of slowly icing me out without me understanding. I felt really clued into how you were feeling, but not that I'd done something wrong. And it was just a great example of conflict done well.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

I feel like that was a huge moment. I've said this before, I I know that you don't necessarily agree, but I feel like subconsciously, you just kind of wanted to see what would happen if you were to change your thing and like be romantically available. And you kind of wanted to stress test what it would be like for us to have an argument or some sort of uncomfortable thing, and like, how does Maxson react? So whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I really took it that way. And I, when I was sitting in the car, I was thinking to myself, okay, this is potentially the person that I'm gonna be with for my whole life. What is the best, nicest, most generous, most loving way to respond to this situation that I can possibly muster? And let's make sure that we do this that way to set the tone for what the rest of our relationship could be like. And I feel like that's what we did, where we had the conversation. I said, Hey, just so you know, I saw that you changed this thing. You're allowed to do that. Like, we haven't talked at all about what we what we are. Uh, I just wanted to let you know that I felt a little surprised because I feel that we had both been part of this collective phenomenon of nature. Like we both were in an earthquake together, and we were like, okay, now we're earthquake people. And you're like changing the thing made me feel like, oh, maybe you didn't feel the earthquake the same way. And that's just kind of how I'm feeling. And you were like, I I I understand, and and then we wrote these notes to each other where we were able to really explicate our feelings in a slow way.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So, Maxine, you've pretty much detailed that you knew you wanted to spend your life with her from the jump. Like it was very clear to you very early. Yeah, it sounds like you were kind of all in, like from early on. And I'm curious to know from Emily, like, Emily, when was it for you that you felt like you wanted to spend your life with Maxine?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

She's still considering she's still wondering. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:15

I think moving back to San Francisco and just starting to like build a life that was a lot more slow and calm and routined.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Is that Max and did you move to San Francisco? Who moved to be with who?

SPEAKER_04 26:27

Yeah, yeah. Me and a friend of ours, he and I both moved in with Emily on the same day. So the three of us have lived together for years at this point. Our friend Ryan and I, we moved in with Emily, and we both moved to San Francisco. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 26:42

Yeah. And I think realizing that sometimes I think relationships can make your life smaller, and people sort of want to like, okay, they're like out in the world meeting all these people, doing a lot of things, and then you want to find your person and just like make your world a little smaller, which I think is beautiful in some ways. But I just found that our relationship made our life bigger and we had more friends, there were more people in the house, it was more fun, just everything had more rather than less.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah, I will probably send you both a couple of follow-up questions just to get a little bit more context because all I really got was like the meat cute and the falling in love. And there's more to a relationship than that. But I'm gonna take everything you shared with me, and I am going to basically craft a pseudo-symbolic wedding ceremony. And we'll do, if you guys are open to it, we'll do like some mini kind of vows, you know, as if we were exchanging rings and like saying some I do's and I can customize those for you and really kind of help you know what it would feel like to be going through a marriage ceremony. Wow. We'll do like a we'll do like a micro marriage ceremony with a retelling of your sword, like a small rom-com wedding so that you guys can feel what it we experience what it would feel like to get married, and maybe just that experience of having a ceremony like that would help you decide if it's something you want to do in real life.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Yeah, I love this idea. It's actually so crazy how lucky we are that we get to do a fake of a fake wedding to see if we liked the way it felt. That's crazy. Nobody gets to do this.

unknown 28:08

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

I have job Envy. I love your job. Cool. I'm excited to uh connect with you guys again.

SPEAKER_06 28:16

Likewise, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Emily, what was it like to tell our love story here on the show?

SPEAKER_06 28:30

I thought it was so nice. I love telling our story. It's like a sweet origin that feels very us.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Whenever we tell the story, I feel like I watch you be like kind of smug where it's like, yeah, I actually brought like a lot, like I actually brought like a bunch of people. That's just kind of the girl I am.

SPEAKER_06 28:45

Yeah, so that's just a little something about me. I'm just a gatherer. I'm like a community hub.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

Also, you take like particular delight in not explaining why you left when I went to go do the work call when you were in the bookstore and then you left with Connie and Anya. Like why? You can't be caged.

SPEAKER_06 29:06

I'm just a free bird. I'm gonna flip away.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

You love that part of the story that you just left after drive-by kissing me. I don't think I love that story.

SPEAKER_06 29:13

I actually don't like that part of the story.

SPEAKER_04 29:15

Really? I've always thought that you took some pleasure in having left.

SPEAKER_06 29:20

No.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

You know, why don't you like it?

SPEAKER_06 29:22

Because I think it's it was my former avoidant tendencies, which is just like I could send a hard text being like, hey man, we left, or I could just sort of leave and hope nothing happens.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Wow. I feel like you've changed so much. I feel like you're really good at those uncomfortable texts now. Thanks. Giving someone like a tiny bit of bad news used to be such a big deal for you. Now it's not good for you.

SPEAKER_06 29:46

Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Okay, so next time we talk to Nico, we are going to get fake married. Emily, what do you think it will feel like to get fake married?

SPEAKER_06 29:54

I will feel two things if I had to guess. One is delight in feeling like seen and represented. And then I think there'll be a part of me that's just like, oh, this is so traditional. And I've heard this done a million times, and I kind of like resist hearing my name and my story organized in a way that I've heard 20 times at 20 different weddings. So I think I'll feel drawn to it and seen and emotional in some ways, then also kind of resistant and stubborn in some other ways.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

Yeah, I get that. I have a feeling that it's gonna sound really cheesy. And then I'm gonna have some sort of internal conflict where I recognize that it's cheesy and I want to like resist it because it's cheesy, but inside I'll be like delighted because I feel seen and my story is being reflected back to us. So I think I'll feel kind of I don't know. There will be a feeling of discomfort, but like exciting discomfort. But I also think that an element of corness is just being sweet, you know, being earnest, being heartfelt. We'll see. We'll see what that's like. I have I have some ner nervousness about it, but I feel lucky that we get to do this. I feel super grateful for Nico that he spent time with us to understand our love story, understand how we came to be a couple, and will be reflecting that back to us in a official rom-com style Nico Reino wedding ceremony. How lucky are we?

SPEAKER_06 31:17

Mm-hmm. We're so lucky. Thank you, Nico.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

And in our next episode, you're gonna hear some of this.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

One very hot take that I have, and perhaps you shouldn't even air this, is people who have a couple's therapist when they are dating are never gonna cut it. Being married.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

That's fucking crazy, Bridget. Should We Get Married is an original series by Easily Wowed and Bad Cooley Productions. This episode was created by me, Max Ingerecki.

SPEAKER_05 31:46

And me, Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

And our producer, Ramoy Phillip.

SPEAKER_05 31:50

Theme music is the song Fake Romantic by the band Melt, logo and brand design by Madeline Vogue.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

Sound design and mixing by Ramoy Phillip. We want to say thank you to Nico for doing this with us. And if you liked Nico's vibe, you can head on over to romcomweddings.com to learn more.

SPEAKER_06 32:06

There are so many of you out there who are asking these exact same questions, and we don't all have to investigate marriage on our own. Subscribe to Should We Get Married and learn with us as we make our decision.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

All you need is the letter I just want to do it.