Day 48 – Wedding bloopers…
I was ordained to the Christian Ministry on August 11, 1974, this meant, among other things, that I could legally perform weddings and I hit the ground running. My first wedding was shortly after my ordination, and I wanted it to be perfect.
It was in a small and very old, but beautiful Quaker Church in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania. Elegant, and simple, and only close family and friends were there. At the end, the couple was taken to the home for the reception in a fabulous horse-drawn carriage.
Everything was going fine until it was time for communion. I wanted to be authentic, so no grape juice and paper-thin wafers were used. I used real wine and a beautifully baked round loaf of wheat bread. By tradition, you offer the bread first which represents the broken body of Christ given for your healing. Then you offer the wine as the blood of Christ for your sins.
Well, I took the bread and broke it, like Jesus did in the scriptures and tore off a piece, one for the bride and one for the groom and said, again as Jesus did, “This is my body which is broken for you, take eat”.
The only problem was, in my haste I had torn off a BIG piece for each of them and by the time I got to the wine, bless their hearts, they were still chewing…it’s not like they could spit it out.
Thankfully, they washed it down with the wine and finally got to swallow. Believe me from that time on I only “pinched” a piece of bread during the ceremony.
Since there were a lot of younger people in New York on my first assignment, I did a lot of weddings and there are way too many stories to cover here, but I’ll give you a few.
I didn’t like flash pictures during the ceremony, I felt it distracted from the service so I would usually tell people ahead of time. The one event I remember most was when the brother of the bride decided he would take pictures during the wedding. He did this not from his seat which was right in the front, but he stood in the aisle so he could get them both and me I guess and started snapping away. Then he decided to lay on the floor and take a picture looking up at us. By now, obviously, everyone was watching him and not the service, so I had to stop and tell him to go take his seat.
In Long Island, there were several places that catered mostly to weddings. There would be three of four brides and bridal parties moving around the venue at the same time. Because of this, many times they would use the same room where I did the ceremony for the reception. Which meant while the Bride and Groom were shaking hands outside the room, they would break it down and reset.
I suppose that’s fine for most weddings, but remember my “no photos” rule during the service? So, when the bridal party left, I saw the crew ready to tear everything down and reset the room which I couldn’t let happen. The result was a standoff. I stood in front of the “alter” and the setup crew of several workers stood in front of me ready to move in and dismantle everything. That standoff continued until I could send someone to go get the couple and we could take the pictures.
One of the more embarrassing moments came after a prayer during the service. The etiquette was to put my left hand on the groom’s shoulder and my right hand on the bride’s head (some reference in the scripture about her being covered) and I said my part. But when I brought my hands down, let’s just say the bride was “generously” built, and with my eyes still closed, as I brought my hands down, I grazed her breast. She was shocked, I was totally shocked, but as they say, “The show must go on” so I acted as though it didn’t happen and kept moving through the ceremony.
I did both my son’s weddings, which blessed me so much. For my oldest son, we were at a beautiful place in the Virginia mountains, and I did this ceremony with just me officiating. For my youngest son, his wife-to-be was Roman Catholic, so I did the service with a most wonderful priest who happened to be the chaplain for the New York Jets football team, so we had a blast.
I also did a Roman Catholic wedding for the daughter of a very close friend of mine in North Carolina. This priest was a Franciscan Monk with a full robe, rope belt and sandals and we hit if off beautifully. If he were not being transferred, the following week, he said he would have invited me to teach at his church one Sunday morning…how amazing is that???
Several times when I offered communion at weddings, I would use the communion set I have pictured above. It was Granddaddy’s communion set that he took around with him on his circuit riding for the Methodist Church in the mountains of North Carolina. That was very significant for me to be able to do what he had done so many years ago.
Well, I could go on for pages, but that’s enough for now and I’ll have something else tomorrow.
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