What follows is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book, Marriage: Even Better than the Real Thing. The events represented in this account are all relatively true, depending on where you were when they happened. At no time should my views be confused with those of my wife, who was also present at our wedding.

Last December my wife and I got married. From the beginning, our relationship drifted well off the traditional marriage radar screen - a distinction that resulted not merely from the remarkable height differential between me and my wife, but more from the fact that my wife, Charo, is Peruvian and I am a U.S. citizen (a Chicagoan, at that).

A randomly selected celebrant gives the ceremony a game show feel.

Despite the fact that Time magazine announced that all things Latin were now “cool,” we knew we still didn’t fit the mainstream definition of a married couple. Emerging from our disillusionment, my wife and I have accepted that our marriage shares little with a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, “honey I’m home” experience and has more in common with the surreality of a Star Trek episode.

In this regard, we have discovered that we have something to offer mainstream America. In an age that challenges us to boldly lift our voices and join with pro basketball star Grant Hill in proclaiming, "Image is nothing!" my wife and I feel morally obligated to add our voices in celebrating the rebirth of the “authentic.”

With that in mind, we humbly offer the world a quick and easy guide to the authentic wedding. Drawing predominantly upon the experience garnered during our two-week wedding adventure (pictures available on request), we have identified several major components that we consider essential to making one’s wedding authentic. What follows is merely a taste of just some of the practical insights that our upcoming book will explore in greater detail.

If you take anything from this marital tract, let it be that the goal of the authentic wedding planner is not unlike that of the Zen master directing his first documentary film. It is your responsibility to take your audience “along for the ride,” while staying focused on the larger goal of grounding their existence in the present.

To accomplish this, it is utterly necessary to make each person feel as if he or she has left the warm security of a regimented, structured life behind and is allowing the future to unfold freely and haphazardly. Choosing a foreign site for your wedding creates this feel by providing an air of unpredictability. Such volatility is considered by many to be refreshing and, in turn, adds to the reality of the moment - making it, as it were, more real.

For example, my wife and I chose Peru for our blessed union.* We were drawn by the challenge offered by the varied terrain of the country and the fairly creative air traffic patterns that made our arrival at the wedding site a serious question mark. But the point is, that’s OK. In fact, the more that everyone holds their collective breath the better. Remember, if people aren’t turning blue, it’s not authentic.

Another fringe benefit of traveling to a foreign land is the inherent element of danger. Indeed, it is important not to underestimate the power that danger adds to any wedding. Even something so mundane as the fear of acquiring dysentery from the wedding cake will immediately give your occasion an air of sex appeal. If we have learned anything from primetime TV it is that sex appeal is powerfully real and not to be used recklessly.

While all the food at our wedding went down the right pipes, we compensated for the highly edible food waiting for us in Peru by bringing several people with eating disorders (aka vegetarians). Which brings us to our second important point: When traveling, bring vegetarians, especially to countries whose major food groups consist of various shades of red meat.

My wife and I followed this conventional wisdom when selecting our wedding party, but with a (fun) twist. In addition to two vegetarians, we included my cousin who suffers from severe bronchial dysfunction. We felt this combination offered us the most effective "one-two punch" due to the fact that we would be eating a variety of cooked animal flesh at ridiculously high altitudes (we were unable to locate a vegetarian with severe asthma; however, for those of you on a budget, with a little extra footwork, you can save yourselves a couple extra plane tickets). Inviting such liabilities mimics the more exciting episodes of "ER."

The outcome of such decisions is limited only by the planner’s ability to heighten the tension of the trip. Tension means emotion and emotions intensify the experience, in effect allowing the experience to say, "Hey look at me, I’m real!” thus imprinting the moment forever in the minds of those participating (I would gently refer you back to the stuff about the Zen master).

We would encourage you and your spouse to create your own "witch’s brew" of wedding party invitees. Some possible suggestions: encourage a xenophobe to join you on your international trip, anyone using Viagra, or even frustrated musicians (if sufficiently frustrated). Once again for those budget hunters out there, one viable option might include “borrowing” a male musician who has never ventured out of the country and then feeding him a daily diet of traumatic stories about the savage land while simultaneously spiking his tea with Viagra.

Cruise control-like precision is the sworn enemy of any authenticity seeker. It is important that when the possibility of blissful perfection is within reach, you don’t just stand by and passively allow your wedding to drift into oblivion. If things are going well, it’s time to do some serious tinkering. In this regard, there are a few additional ‘tweekable” areas of the traditional wedding that deserve further consideration.

Think about having a randomly selected celebrant. We did. The priest we had originally chosen was mysteriously replaced by another priest right before the wedding. This type of unpredictability gives the ceremony a game show feel and keeps most people focused during the initial part of the wedding as they wait to discover who the celebrant could possibly be.

If facing an audience with serious attention span issues, think about shrouding the priest for the entire ceremony (mirroring the format used on "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?") and then have a mini unveiling at the final blessing. Gambling during the actual nuptials should be frowned upon, but friendly wagering before the service regarding the celebrant’s identity can only heighten the excitement and will give participants a greater stake in the ceremony. In addition, the fact that the celebrant has never met either of you allows everyone to wonder what he will say about you, your spouse and your future. In other words, a random celebrant is just that - random. And random, for lack of a better term, is good.

Another avenue that we explored was to plan everything over the phone. This way, the ideal picture of your wedding isn’t shattered to smithereens by reality until it is too late to pick up the pieces and regroup, thus leaving you open to embrace the naked authenticity of the moment. It is worth adding that this is a particularly helpful image to retain throughout the experience - wrapping yourself around naked authenticity. You, of course, can be fully clothed.

Children are another way to add surprise. Remember: Tension means emotion, and emotions intensify the authentic experience.

Since we were traveling throughout Peru after the wedding, we also decided to bring some of the wedding guests along on the honeymoon. This produces the feel of a family road trip, except this time you’re driving and your parents are fighting in the back seat. Not to mention that you never know when some sort of ancient familial wound will break the surface and ooze itself all over the moment. Such potential explosions make you acutely aware of every seemingly meaningless dispute, just as a snowboarder understands that the soft crack of a twig might signal a massive avalanche.

In addition, my wife’s Peruvian family and my own family had never met prior to the wedding. In these sorts of multicultural situations, people have a tendency to bend over backwards to insure that their intentions will not be misinterpreted, guaranteeing some sort of intercultural melee.

As my wife and I discovered, celebrating your wedding during the millennium heightens the sense of doom and foreboding. The people wandering the streets with placards proclaiming the end of human existence and the need for immediate repentance will juxtapose nicely with you and your spouse’s “new beginning” and adds a David Lettermanesque ironic flair to your nights of debauchery and unmitigated self-satisfaction. Sure, Y2K hysteria has passed. But since many millennialists believe that 2001 is the real beginning, you still have time to find a suitably high-stress location, such as a bunker in Montana.

Once again, I would like to emphasize that the ideas presented here are only suggestions. Let your own spirit of authenticity guide you on the path best suited for your special day. Remember that choosing authenticity will potentially confuse and upset many traditional wedding-goers (including your parents and anyone else you invite to the wedding). Do not allow their “issues’ with reality to deter you. Continue onward with the intensity of a beast of prey. Do not delay. If there is any golden nugget to be mined from our experience, it is that real spontaneity takes a tremendous amount of planning.

*In this particular context, "liabilities" is used in its most positive sense.  Remember, these people will enhance the authenticity by being living, breathing obstacles to the "perfect wedding."

Michael Heidkamp teaches high school Social Studies, and having survived his own wedding, now resides happily in Chicago, Ill.