We really wanted to do something special with our friends, something local, and we love the Sun. So at 6 a.m., an hour before sunrise, on December 11, 2011, we gathered together with our beloved San Francisco community on top of Bernal Hill. Fortunately for us, Katy Bell, the producer of San Francisco’s Dada Festival and a porn clown, volunteered to be our production manager. She somehow managed to cajole us, and our sleep- friends, and collaborators to the Hill and into place in the pre-dawn darkness. Once we were awake, we unfurled a very long silk ribbon and asked everyone to hold on to it as we led a procession around Bernal Hill. We watched the Sunrise over the East Bay. Then we all climbed up to the crest of the hill and reveled in the stunning 360-degree view of San Francisco.

The two of us were the brides, masters of ceremonies, and the officiants. Joseph Kramer was our lead groom. Many of our friends attended this wedding as witnesses, performers, and supporters. Even artist Linda M. Montano joined us by astral projection. As the ritual began, we applied thick, white sunscreen to everyone’s noses. Neighbors strolled and walked their dogs nearby while we performed. Sadie Lune, who had been trying to get pregnant, laid a raw egg on the ground, which she then cracked to display a golden yellow yolk, glittering in the morning sun. Tony’s Circus played live and sang “Here Comes the Sun.” Mariko Passion’s Conscientious Objector performance was a reenactment of the 2011 UC Davis police tear-gassing of peaceful student protesters. Lady Monster performed a sunrise burlesque routine roasting marshmallows on sticks with her flaming tassels, which she then fed to wedding guests. The ritual closed with Good Vibrations CEO Jack Strano’s moving rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Theater director Rudy Ramirez flew in from Austin, Texas, and did our homily, a piece he wrote and performed called “Happy Endings.” By the end of the wedding, the Sun was burning bright.

To view, our beautiful Wedding program and full credits click here.

| ARTISTS’ STATEMENT | ECO-SEXUAL BLUE WEDDING TO THE SEA

WE ARE THE LOVE ART LABORATORY, an artist couple dedicated to doing art projects that explore, generate, and celebrate love. We orchestrate performance art weddings in collaboration with various international communities. Each wedding is site-specific, interactive, and utilizes a different theme and color based on the seven chakra system (inspired by artist Linda Montano’s 14 Years of Living Art.) The Love Art Laboratory grew out of our response to the violence of war, the anti-gay marriage movement, and the corporate greed causing the destruction of our planet. Our projects are symbolic gestures, which aim to instill hope, to be an antidote to fear, and act as a call to action.

THIS PAST YEAR, WE MARRIED the Earth in a magnificent redwood tree grove in California, we married the Sky in Oxford, England, and we had what may have been the first queer wed- ding in the Balkans, in Zagreb, Croatia. Hundreds of people attended these weddings and helped to create them through their generous collaborations.

FOR OUR SEVENTH WEDDING, AND IN OUR BLUE YEAR, we will marry the Sea. We are passionately in love with her and desire to take care of her in order to help save her. We are eco-sexuals, meaning that we find nature incredibly romantic, extraordinarily sensual, and an exquisite lover. Additionally, we are “sexecologists,” who combine sexology and ecology, and we intend to make the environmental movement a little sexier.

WHY MARRY THE SEA IN VENICE? During the Renaissance, the Doge (chief magistrate) de- creed that, “Venice must marry the sea as a man marries a women and thus become her Lord.” So each year the Doge would go out on a boat and drop a ring into the water. But can people really Lord over the Sea? What is perfectly clear is that people do have the power to destroy her, and are rapidly doing so. We will follow the tradition of marrying the Sea in Venice — as two women who have moved beyond the dominant-male and submissive-female dynamic, as seduc- tive eco-sexual artists, and as global citizens who care deeply about the welfare of our planet.

THE FEAR SOCIETY PAVILION IS THE PERFECT PLACE for this wedding as we are afraid of the total destruction of our beautiful environment. The Sea has a fast growing cancer made of islands of plastic the size of Texas. She is suffocating from gasses caused by our pollution. Glob- ally, 90% of her large fish have been wiped out. She’s overheating. Her reefs have been brutally destroyed. She’s being raped and… Need we go on? And we simply can’t live without her.

LOVING THE SEA EROTICALLY takes us all deliciously deep, deep, deep inside our primordial selves. Our bodies are made largely of water so in fact we are the Sea. We hope that our guests will take vows to love and protect Sea along with us. Now let’s get wet!

Click here for the Wedding Program!

ELIZABETH M. STEPHENS & ANNIE M. SPRINKLE