George and Amanda came out to my house to get married down by the riverside. Despite the ironic fact that Amanda is a divorce lawyer, they’re a classic example of young, hopeful, ambitious people psyched about each other and extremely happy to get married.

Except…they had a thing. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up. No, let me digress and contextualize.

Having performed close to 350 ceremonies at this point, I’ve married A LOT of couples. A lot. I’ve worked with people who care deeply about each other, people who are insanely hot for each other, people who are good friends, people who still can’t figure out how they manage to make a relationship work, people who can barely stand each other but are getting married anyway, people who, in finding each other, have clearly saved each other’s lives.

I’ve married teens and grandparents. I’ve married people who don’t speak English. I’ve married couples who’ve been together a few months and couples who’ve been together 35 years. Gay, straight, trans, and, interestingly enough, a whole lot of dog lovers (though they weren’t marrying the dog).

Ok. You get the picture. I’ve seen a lot of love.

What stood out for me about George and Amanda was Amanda’s complete lack of guardedness when it came to her love for George. She had a kind of unbridled, gazillion-kilowatt passion for him which beamed out of her face like an exploding sun. Nothing tempered or held back about it. It was full-on, shared-with-the-world capital LUV.

Of course, what also stood out for me was the fact that George, who’s a quieter, less demonstrative kind of guy, seemed completely unperturbed by the amount of affection coming towards him. In fact, quite the opposite. He drank it in like a lost desert traveler with his head plunged into the pool at the oasis.

A lot of folks might think it would be great to be loved that much. But, I know people who would be a little overwhelmed by that much energy laser-beamed directly at them. They wouldn’t know how to take it in or how to respond if they weren’t that kind of Beamer themselves. Some might not think they deserved that much affection.

Not George. He’s clearly given her the message that she can’t possibly dig him too much, so go for it, Amanda. Beam til your guts ache and your face falls off. Knock yourself out.

It’s a rather cynical, rambunctiously contentious age we live in. So their juicy, complementary love mojo was an utterly beautiful thing to see.