My boyfriend and I both believed that the only reason to wed was because you could love God and serve Him better together than you could apart. After a mini-soap-opera of a five-year courtship in which both sides of the family did not think we were good enough to graft into their branch of the family tree we were convinced it was God’s will that we marry. The families grudgingly resigned themselves to the fact that we were going to do this despite their disapproval. We set a date that gave us three months to pull a wedding together on what the bride and groom had in their savings and enlisted the help of our close friends. I delegated music, decorations, and key aspects of the ceremony to various people and concentrated on things that only I could do like fainting at my blood test for the marriage license.
Despite what the bride beautiful magazines tell you, a wedding ceremony is not about what the bride wants or even about having a “perfect day” of memories. A wedding is about taking two families of strangers and making them into one strange family. My beloved and I could have gone on a mountain top and said our vows before God and the arrangement would have been binding for us because we believe God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. But we felt we had to have a wedding ceremony witnessed by our relatives so there could be no more suggestions that we try “dating somebody else.”
The difficulty was finding a neutral territory in which to have the ceremony. Our college church had met in the YMCA and our pastor wasn’t available for a month surrounding our wedding date. My mother-in-law’s church wouldn’t marry us because I was not Catholic. My family’s Methodism was the kind that didn’t have a home church. So we settled on an outdoor wedding in the back yard of my imminent in-laws. They obtained a little trellis arch and decorated it with silk flowers. My future father-in-law offered to make arrangements to have a new, young pastor from his church perform the ceremony. I had never been to his church – it had a really long name that ended with the word “wonders” – but I was relieved to have one less thing on my to do list.
It is only in the last century that we have grown dependent on weddings to economically sustain caterers, bakers, florists, confectioners, tuxedo rentals, bridal boutiques, and wedding consultants. I found out recently that it is considered bad luck to make your own wedding dress. I had sewn my share of nightgowns and for $50 of white satin and lace, I was able to sew my own wedding dress. I’ll admit, it looked somewhat like a nightgown, but at least there were no complicated fittings and my maid-of-honor could hand sew the hem as we drove to Grover City (later renamed Grover Beach). I bought a nice pair of high-heeled dance sandals. My mother had a silk flowered headdress made for me and since brides in other countries have had to wear far worse, I figured I could get through the ceremony without it toppling off my head. The groom and the best man would wear dark slacks and shoes and traditional Filipino wedding shirts made by the mother-of-the-groom.
Initially, I was just going to have cake and punch for the reception, but my future mother-in-law refused to have a “white people’s” reception for her only son. She and the aunties told me they would cook some decent Filipino food like lumpia, chicken adobo, and pansit, so “at least people could eat” and when word of this leaked out my side of the family volunteered to bring meat pasties and potluck salads. Since I like “naked” Angel Food cake with fresh strawberries, the maid of honor and I baked about six of them and chopped up the berries the night before.
By the morning of August 6, 1983, it had been discovered that the best man had forgotten his dress shoes and had only ratty sneakers to wear. I suggested he go barefoot since the whole thing would take place on the grass in the backyard. My friend in charge of decorations had strung white and pink crepe paper over every part of the patio, clothesline, and shrubbery she could reach. In the coastal air the crepe paper was already beginning to stretch so the patio looked like it had been TP’ed by pranksters. My friend had been drinking cola since breakfast and was looking a bit jittery so I told her she had achieved modern art without a government grant. I later found out she tied three dozen aluminum soda cans to our getaway truck. She also drew hearts in shaving crème over the vehicle which, because it sat out in the sun all afternoon, ate into the paint job so that a heart could be seen on the side of that truck for the next 17 years we owned it.
As we approached the time for getting dressed for the ceremony, my fiancé pulled me aside privately and said, “If you have any doubts about marrying me, this is your chicken exit. You can call it off right now. But if you vow to be my wife, and take me for your husband, it’s for life because divorce will not be an option. We may be happy or we may be miserable, but we will be together until we die.” I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something to the effect of “let’s do this.”
I was trying to pull together my whole hair and dress ensemble in my parents’ motorhome when my maid-of-honor came in and said soothingly, “We’ve had a slight miscommunication but things are going to be JUST FINE.” Turns out the young pastor my father-in-law had asked to perform the wedding had thought he was being invited to attend a wedding. I had thought it odd that there was no wedding rehearsal scheduled. Poor guy showed up just when the ceremony should have started only to be greeted by two really annoyed fathers. Fortunately, he lived a few blocks away so he raced home and got his “wedding gear” and raced back to do what the state of California had invested him with the power to do.
I told my musician friends, who often played at coffee houses in our college town, to choose something they knew we would like. I believe our processional was “When I’m Sixty-Four” by the Beatles and our recessional was “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John. Our maid-of-honor was the loveliest thing at the wedding in a rose gown she had chosen. She has a habit of giggling when she’s nervous. The audience kept wondering what joke they were missing as she walked up to her place. Our best man is very tall and very sentimental and as he took his place, there was much questioning among the relatives as to the significance of having the best man go barefoot. The groom was trying to look dignified while giving our names to the pastor. I was concentrating on not losing my headdress of flowers while gripping onto my father’s arm as my high heels snagged on the brick walkway and sunk into the lawn.
I made it to my beloved’s side, was given away by my father, and faced the pastor completely unsure of what would happen next. He threw back his head and flung his hands to the sky and cried out in a booming southern accent, “Praise God, Brothers and Sisters, for the GLORIOUS day HE has made and the bringing together of these two young people in that SACRED and HOLY institution of marriage, AMEN and HALLELUJAH.” I looked at my betrothed and he looked at me and we smiled. God had provided the perfect pastor who would make both sides of the family equally uncomfortable.
We loved everything the pastor had to say except for the fact that he kept getting my name wrong. My husband not only married Sandra Sue that day but Sharon, Susan, and Sally. This sent the maid of honor into suppressed fits of giggles. The best man began to weep and sniffle as large tears dropped off the end of his nose. My groom and I had our own distraction in the form of a fly that thought we looked good enough to eat. I made an effort to not swallow it as I was saying my part and at one point I wanted to reach out and smack it off my man’s mustache but decided the audience wasn’t going to understand a loving slap’s role in the ceremony anymore than they were following the preacher’s southern drawl.
Vows were vowed, rings exchanged, and we were pronounced man and wife. The traditional family photographs were taken. My family made a point of cutting off the best man’s bare feet in the photos they took. My in-laws made a point of including his feet but cutting off the best man’s head in every photo they took of the wedding party. One of our friends had made a lovely mix of wedding music that he played for our reception as both sides of the family endured the afternoon heat on their own sides of the patio and visited their own buffet tables of food. I was particularly proud of the fathers, who broke ranks and went to the opposite sides to fill their plates. My father picked up a piece of lumpia and stared at it. My father-in-law picked up a meat pasty and stared at it. Then they both took a bite and smiled at each other with recognition. Chopped meat and vegetables in a pastry – this they could appreciate!
My brother had been kind enough to play some of his bluegrass music for the reception and now with a piece of cake he came to sit beside me. My husband’s family was on one side of the patio, muttering. My family was huddled on the other side, murmuring. My brother said gently, “You were a flower girl at my first wedding so you remember how perfect it was. The church, the dress, the flowers, the ice sculpture at the reception – all just the way they were supposed to be. But ten years later the marriage failed. Based on what you’ve gone through today, you two must really love each other and I’m thinking your marriage will succeed.” I was too numb at the time to remember if I had a response, but I’ve often thought since about marital success being inversely proportional to the size of the wedding ice sculpture.
Our musicians were getting ready to leave and one of them came up to us with congratulatory hugs and said appreciatively, “I’ve done a lot of weddings but THIS was the FUNKIEST wedding I’ve ever seen.” Twenty-seven years and many weddings later I can say with confidence that mine was the funkiest wedding I have ever seen. But for all the quirks and mishaps of the wedding, the marriage has been glorious, delightful, and blessed. A wedding is just a day, a ceremony, a life-marker that announces, “from here on out, two lives become one.” It’s the marriage and the legacy it creates that matters in the grand scheme of life.
Despite what the bride beautiful magazines tell you, a wedding ceremony is not about what the bride wants or even about having a “perfect day” of memories. A wedding is about taking two families of strangers and making them into one strange family. My beloved and I could have gone on a mountain top and said our vows before God and the arrangement would have been binding for us because we believe God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. But we felt we had to have a wedding ceremony witnessed by our relatives so there could be no more suggestions that we try “dating somebody else.”
The difficulty was finding a neutral territory in which to have the ceremony. Our college church had met in the YMCA and our pastor wasn’t available for a month surrounding our wedding date. My mother-in-law’s church wouldn’t marry us because I was not Catholic. My family’s Methodism was the kind that didn’t have a home church. So we settled on an outdoor wedding in the back yard of my imminent in-laws. They obtained a little trellis arch and decorated it with silk flowers. My future father-in-law offered to make arrangements to have a new, young pastor from his church perform the ceremony. I had never been to his church – it had a really long name that ended with the word “wonders” – but I was relieved to have one less thing on my to do list.
It is only in the last century that we have grown dependent on weddings to economically sustain caterers, bakers, florists, confectioners, tuxedo rentals, bridal boutiques, and wedding consultants. I found out recently that it is considered bad luck to make your own wedding dress. I had sewn my share of nightgowns and for $50 of white satin and lace, I was able to sew my own wedding dress. I’ll admit, it looked somewhat like a nightgown, but at least there were no complicated fittings and my maid-of-honor could hand sew the hem as we drove to Grover City (later renamed Grover Beach). I bought a nice pair of high-heeled dance sandals. My mother had a silk flowered headdress made for me and since brides in other countries have had to wear far worse, I figured I could get through the ceremony without it toppling off my head. The groom and the best man would wear dark slacks and shoes and traditional Filipino wedding shirts made by the mother-of-the-groom.
Initially, I was just going to have cake and punch for the reception, but my future mother-in-law refused to have a “white people’s” reception for her only son. She and the aunties told me they would cook some decent Filipino food like lumpia, chicken adobo, and pansit, so “at least people could eat” and when word of this leaked out my side of the family volunteered to bring meat pasties and potluck salads. Since I like “naked” Angel Food cake with fresh strawberries, the maid of honor and I baked about six of them and chopped up the berries the night before.
By the morning of August 6, 1983, it had been discovered that the best man had forgotten his dress shoes and had only ratty sneakers to wear. I suggested he go barefoot since the whole thing would take place on the grass in the backyard. My friend in charge of decorations had strung white and pink crepe paper over every part of the patio, clothesline, and shrubbery she could reach. In the coastal air the crepe paper was already beginning to stretch so the patio looked like it had been TP’ed by pranksters. My friend had been drinking cola since breakfast and was looking a bit jittery so I told her she had achieved modern art without a government grant. I later found out she tied three dozen aluminum soda cans to our getaway truck. She also drew hearts in shaving crème over the vehicle which, because it sat out in the sun all afternoon, ate into the paint job so that a heart could be seen on the side of that truck for the next 17 years we owned it.
As we approached the time for getting dressed for the ceremony, my fiancé pulled me aside privately and said, “If you have any doubts about marrying me, this is your chicken exit. You can call it off right now. But if you vow to be my wife, and take me for your husband, it’s for life because divorce will not be an option. We may be happy or we may be miserable, but we will be together until we die.” I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something to the effect of “let’s do this.”
I was trying to pull together my whole hair and dress ensemble in my parents’ motorhome when my maid-of-honor came in and said soothingly, “We’ve had a slight miscommunication but things are going to be JUST FINE.” Turns out the young pastor my father-in-law had asked to perform the wedding had thought he was being invited to attend a wedding. I had thought it odd that there was no wedding rehearsal scheduled. Poor guy showed up just when the ceremony should have started only to be greeted by two really annoyed fathers. Fortunately, he lived a few blocks away so he raced home and got his “wedding gear” and raced back to do what the state of California had invested him with the power to do.
I told my musician friends, who often played at coffee houses in our college town, to choose something they knew we would like. I believe our processional was “When I’m Sixty-Four” by the Beatles and our recessional was “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John. Our maid-of-honor was the loveliest thing at the wedding in a rose gown she had chosen. She has a habit of giggling when she’s nervous. The audience kept wondering what joke they were missing as she walked up to her place. Our best man is very tall and very sentimental and as he took his place, there was much questioning among the relatives as to the significance of having the best man go barefoot. The groom was trying to look dignified while giving our names to the pastor. I was concentrating on not losing my headdress of flowers while gripping onto my father’s arm as my high heels snagged on the brick walkway and sunk into the lawn.
I made it to my beloved’s side, was given away by my father, and faced the pastor completely unsure of what would happen next. He threw back his head and flung his hands to the sky and cried out in a booming southern accent, “Praise God, Brothers and Sisters, for the GLORIOUS day HE has made and the bringing together of these two young people in that SACRED and HOLY institution of marriage, AMEN and HALLELUJAH.” I looked at my betrothed and he looked at me and we smiled. God had provided the perfect pastor who would make both sides of the family equally uncomfortable.
We loved everything the pastor had to say except for the fact that he kept getting my name wrong. My husband not only married Sandra Sue that day but Sharon, Susan, and Sally. This sent the maid of honor into suppressed fits of giggles. The best man began to weep and sniffle as large tears dropped off the end of his nose. My groom and I had our own distraction in the form of a fly that thought we looked good enough to eat. I made an effort to not swallow it as I was saying my part and at one point I wanted to reach out and smack it off my man’s mustache but decided the audience wasn’t going to understand a loving slap’s role in the ceremony anymore than they were following the preacher’s southern drawl.
Vows were vowed, rings exchanged, and we were pronounced man and wife. The traditional family photographs were taken. My family made a point of cutting off the best man’s bare feet in the photos they took. My in-laws made a point of including his feet but cutting off the best man’s head in every photo they took of the wedding party. One of our friends had made a lovely mix of wedding music that he played for our reception as both sides of the family endured the afternoon heat on their own sides of the patio and visited their own buffet tables of food. I was particularly proud of the fathers, who broke ranks and went to the opposite sides to fill their plates. My father picked up a piece of lumpia and stared at it. My father-in-law picked up a meat pasty and stared at it. Then they both took a bite and smiled at each other with recognition. Chopped meat and vegetables in a pastry – this they could appreciate!
My brother had been kind enough to play some of his bluegrass music for the reception and now with a piece of cake he came to sit beside me. My husband’s family was on one side of the patio, muttering. My family was huddled on the other side, murmuring. My brother said gently, “You were a flower girl at my first wedding so you remember how perfect it was. The church, the dress, the flowers, the ice sculpture at the reception – all just the way they were supposed to be. But ten years later the marriage failed. Based on what you’ve gone through today, you two must really love each other and I’m thinking your marriage will succeed.” I was too numb at the time to remember if I had a response, but I’ve often thought since about marital success being inversely proportional to the size of the wedding ice sculpture.
Our musicians were getting ready to leave and one of them came up to us with congratulatory hugs and said appreciatively, “I’ve done a lot of weddings but THIS was the FUNKIEST wedding I’ve ever seen.” Twenty-seven years and many weddings later I can say with confidence that mine was the funkiest wedding I have ever seen. But for all the quirks and mishaps of the wedding, the marriage has been glorious, delightful, and blessed. A wedding is just a day, a ceremony, a life-marker that announces, “from here on out, two lives become one.” It’s the marriage and the legacy it creates that matters in the grand scheme of life.
I love that story, especially the part about the preacher. It cracks me up every time. :-)
ReplyDelete(And I'm glad you explained what lumpia was, because I don't know a thing about Filipino food.)
That is still the best wedding story I ever heard, this was nice as I had not heard all of it before. You could have "My Fat,Filipino Wedding movie." Heck after that you might have just said, No way would I ever get married again and have to repeat it. Happy 27 years!
ReplyDelete