Also, their first choice, an old friend of Tony’s, had politely declined .

I am not an accomplished nor even a happy public speaker, but I will agree to anything if it is far enough in the future. And I knew it could be done. I’ve attended weddings presided over by ministers ordained online by the Universal Life Church and even stranger-sounding outfits — Dudeism, anybody? Such ceremonies are entirely legitimate, documented in the Sunday weddings section of this very newspaper.

The Universal Life Church website was easy to find. (Their slogan: “We are all children of the same universe.” Who could argue with that?) Completing my ordination as a minister took all of 15 minutes, and was free. For $39.99 , I ordered the Classic Wedding Package , which soon arrived in the mail: a booklet about weddings, sample wedding certificates, name tags, bumper stickers and windshield placards proclaiming me a member of the clergy. I could now perform baptisms and funerals and start my own church.

The pamphlet advised that my job was to make sure all this was legal in the eyes of local county and city ordinances. So I went to the City Clerk’s office in Manhattan, where Tony and Millie had obtained their marriage license. After sitting in a lobby for several hours, watching couples and their friends come and go in wedding dresses and formal attire , I was assured by a clerk that my signature on the license would be fine.

Now I had to think of something to say. The material was familiar, I soon realized. My day job largely involves writing about things that are dark, deadly, vast and doomed, and reminding readers of the many ways that humanity, Earth and even the universe could die.