Your wedding, that hazardous event

Sometimes I think that weddings are the most hazardous part of parish ministry. I never quite know what new and fashionable trend will rear its head when a couple approaches me requesting marriage. More and more I notice how wedding ceremonies (and nuptial masses) have undergone a significant shift: from the sacred to the secular.

A number of couples who want to get married do not practice their faith. This is strange – why get married in the Church when you do not participate in the life of the Church? “It’s the right thing to do Father”, is often the response to the question. Isn’t that a bit weird – like filling the petrol tank of the car (also at great expense these days!) and then parking it in the garage and taking the wheels off? Like all the Sacraments Matrimony should be lived in the context of the Church community. To be married in the Church is to say yes to what the Church teaches and understands marriage to be.

“We want to get married at a wedding venue, we can get a good deal if we use the chapel at the venue and it’s easier for our guests”. Is the wedding about a good deal or the convenience of the guests? The real focus of the wedding, as far as the Church understands it, is your relationship, commitment and God. The Church has good reasons for saying, in Canon Law, that marriage should take place in a parish church. The parish church is the very context in which marriage and family life is to be lived. I think there is something sacred about entering the place where it all happened week after week. This will be the same place your children are baptised, confirmed and married. Venues come and go; parishes are here to stay – hopefully like your marriage.

If the Church is not important to couples and it’s a case of “… I never go to Church but was born Catholic” or “My parents and grandparents really want this for me…” are we not all involved in a disingenuous undertaking? Honest and frank discussion about this is, I think, crucial. Everyone’s integrity is at stake – the couple, parents, grandparents and the priest. It would be, in my opinion, more honest to go down to your local home affairs office, sign the deal and have the party. Let’s not pretend it’s something it’s really not.

Once we have crossed that hurdle we need to jump another: marriage preparation. “Why? We know each other really well – in fact there is nothing we don’t know!” Isn’t that a shame? Surely marriage is about discovering more and more about each other, an adventure which in time reveals new things you didn’t know about your partner? If you think you know everything about each other do you also know everything that the Church thinks about marriage (that’s what the Church really thinks and not what the media says the Church thinks!). It is interesting to me how many couples claim to know everything about each other and, after the preparation course, come back and tell me something new they discovered or something they had not spoken about (or avoided speaking about) before. The commitment to preparation reveals something about the very way you view your relationship and proposed marriage.

The actual wedding itself: weddings have become a business (and sadly, often, a show). The social pressure and “Hollywood model” often take the very heart out of weddings. I get the feeling (sometimes) that the wedding ceremony is just the curtain raiser to the “jol” afterwards. More energy goes into preparing things like flowers, the unity candle (which is not part of the Rite by the way!), where the photographer and videographer will stand and how many candles can be put into the Church rather than how best to celebrate your commitment in a spirit and faith-filled manner.

The more grandiose the more complicated, the more complicated the less meaningful – that’s my experience anyway. At wedding rehearsals everyone becomes a liturgical expert; personal preferences and creative innovations abound – the wedding in the latest movie on circuit or the one I saw on my favourite soapie now becomes the liturgical norm. We often have to steer around other hazardous tensions at the rehearsal so that mother-in-laws or aunt’s eccentric ideas or desires can be incorporated to keep everyone happy.

Strange requests often reveal what unthinking fashion slaves we have become. Bride says to me “Father, there is a very meaningful song we want at our wedding; both of us love the tune and my aunt sings it beautifully, is it ok for her to sing?” Cautiously I respond “Well, if it’s appropriate – what is the song and in which part of the liturgy do you want it sung?” The bride-to-be says “We would love her to sing it while we are signing the register, it’s called ‘I still haven’t found what I am looking for’ by a band called U2 – have your heard of them Father?” I respond “Yes I have heard of them. No you cannot have it sung!” Do I live on another planet I wonder to myself? I certainly miss the logic: “For better for worse… from this day forward…” and now we listen to “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”?

The Rite of the Church (which has been around for much longer than most of us!) is simple and focuses on the essentials. Done well, the Rite is beautiful and needs no frills. Tip, if I may; don’t try and fix something that’s not broken.

The actual day: Gum chewing guests arrive and the Church becomes a party hall rather than a place of prayer. As we wait for the arrival of the bride people, speaking loudly, embark upon fashion consults and comparisons or family catch-ups (I haven’t seen that side of the family since the last time we had a conversation at the last family wedding in the Church… Ps she is wearing the same dress!).

Inevitably the bride is late: “It’s her special day and her prerogative Father”. It’s not. It’s disrespectful to me and your guests who have made the effort to be there on time. On the odd occasion the bride is on time she has to drive around the block or go into hiding because the guests are late. If you are invited to someone’s wedding you have no excuse, get there on time!

There is also the occasional wedding when the groomsmen (and the groom) have a drink (or two) in the car park to “calm their nerves”. It certainly doesn’t calm the nerves of the bride when she walks up the aisle, smiling at the man she is about to marry, and then gets the whisky whiff.

It becomes exceedingly difficult to stand in the pulpit with the conviction that this is a sacred moment when everything else is so secular. Perhaps you find all this depressing or think that I am a cynic but sometimes, I am tempted to think, it’s easier (and more consoling) to celebrate funerals rather than weddings.

The challenge: for priests and couples is to work hard together to regain a sense of the sacred in celebrating matrimony. It begins by ensuring that we have good catechesis about matrimony and that we work to actively return to the essentials (even if these are counter-cultural).

Make things simple; put the heart back into your wedding by ensuring you move from the secular into the sacred. The Church has a great gift to offer in the way we celebrate matrimony, let’s use it well and in the right context. It will be a lot less hazardous for you… and the priest!