Last weekend, 20 May 2006, I was able to attend my niece's wedding. She married a Catholic guy so their wedding ceremony was in the Catholic church. There were all the important similarities, but as a Protestant, I noticed some slight differences in the flow of the ceremony.
Remembering my own wedding, things progressed fairly quick. The minister gave a 5 or 10 minute devotional. The vows were said. The bride and groom kissed and marched out. The whole thing was over in about 15 to 20 minutes. In fact, a friend of mine thought our wedding was going to take place at 2:30 pm instead of 2pm. She thought she would be safe and be 10 minutes early. Instead, she arrived as we were marching out the door.
The ceremony last weekend was to start at 11:00 am. My #1 son and I drove up that morning and after getting lost, we managed to get to the church about 11:15 am or so. I was thinking we might have missed it. We figured we would just wait at the back in what some churches call the "cry room." A place to take a crying baby from the church sanctuary so it won't disturb the worship service. As we watched through the observation window, my son gave me the play by play action. The priest was just wrapping up his message and the vows were about to be done. I was very impressed. Both the groom and the bride recited the whole set of their vows from memory. I never would have made it past the first 3 words of my own vows without prompting. At least I thought they had them memorized. I later found out that the priest had turned off his lapel microphone. Hey, I can't blame the young couple, but that would have been really impressive.
As more words were passed on by the priest, there were a few songs interspersed and a prayer or two recited. At one point my son leaned over and whispered, "I don't know what they are doing now. They are all kind of marching around up in the front." I figured it wasn't jello wrestling or midget tossing since there would have been a whole lot more cheering instead of the respectful silence that was going on. It was of course, the eucarist. That means the Lord's Supper for non-Catholic Christians. The people go to the front to recieve it rather than having the deacons bring it out the the congregation.
After at least a full hour of standing, kneeling, sitting and pastoral messages, songs and prayers, it was done. We transitioned to a pre-reception at the groom's house until the actual reception later at 6pm. My son got lost again. Actually, he wasn't really so much lost, he just followed the directions to the reception hall instead. We finally made it to their house where my single 22 year old son , after a very short hunt, promptly discovered there were no single females. Well, there were plenty of them there, but just none who didn't have boyfriends already. He still had a pretty good time. We got to meet a few of the new in-laws and got caught up on all the family news from my mom, brother and sister and all the other family members that have been produced over the years.
Later, at the reception hall, which we did not get lost going to, they had a DJ/Announcer. After people had a chance to greet the wedding party through a reception line, and were seated, theme music was cranked through the PA system. The announcer, in
booming voice began announcing the wedding party.
"Announcing the Ushers..." and gave the names of the ushers as they made their entrance.
"Now introducing the Brides Maid and Groomsman..." and again the names were announced.
I could see the trend going on here, but the theme music and announcing had lead my mind down another path. Sure enough the announcer continued. "Introducing the Maid of Honor and Best man..."and gave their names. At this point, I couldn't resist it anymore. I leaned to my son and continued the announcer's anticipated introduction. "And in this corner, the Bride! Weighing in at a fighting weight of 102 pounds. Standing 5 foot 4 inches...In this corner, the Groom! Standing 6 foot 5 and weighing..."
Not to miss a beat, my son added, "And now for the ultimate tag team match of the century! Let's get ready to rumble!"
All joking aside, it was pretty impressive and a nice affect to get the party kicked off. Oh, by the way, I really don't know how much the bride may weigh. I fugure that unless I hear that I made her out to be too much, I'll hear about. So far, no news is good news.
We were entertained all through the catered dinner hour by a band of Mariachi's. There was also All the usual cake cutting events and dancing. We couldn't stay too long unfortunately, Due to our long drive back home, we had to leave before I would have liked. We said our final words to the bride and wished them well on their honeymoon. I wish them the best of times in their new married life. Lots of happy times and persistence and patience to weather the low times. A successful marriage is grown and built, it doesn't come as a final package from the first day. Good luck and best wishes.
Stay in touch. Nobody is in life alone.