Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Will you marry me? (No really...will you get ordained online and marry me to Dave?)

We have officially passed our one year mark, and I have officially been slacking with this blog.  However, while I've officially been slacking with blog writing, I have been busy getting some official wedding planning done.  For example, we've procured an official officiant to officiate the officialities of our wedding ceremony.  Official enough?

Contrary to what most of my family and friends have done in their own weddings, Dave and I have decided not to get married in a church.  Neither one of us is against people subscribing to a specific faith, and we can't claim beyond a reasonable doubt that one faith isn't true above all others.  However, we ourselves get along just fine without any religion.  Okay, perhaps I eat fish and open gifts on Christmas Eve, but I do so without the guilted obligation of having to go to church the next day.  And just because I indulge in a few beneficial Catholic indulgences here and there doesn't mean I count as "someone of faith."  Therefore, the Catholic wedding my mother dreamt for me would seem hypocritical.  Furthermore, I'm not tickled by the Catholic ceremony that reads like a list of rules the couple must adhere to for a successful marriage NOT to each other, mind you, but to God, like He's there in between the bride and groom giggling with anticipation, jiggling the rings in His pocket.  Sure, many of you are tsk-ing at this blasphemy, and perhaps I am going to hell, but at least Dave will be there waiting for me with a beer.

My mother, in fact, almost did not get a church wedding herself.  In fact, had the summer of '77 (might be wrong on the date there) been just a tad hotter or the ludicrously long precaina process been been just a tad more ludicrously long, my parents wouldn't have gotten married at all.  I'm not quoting but paraphrasing to the best of my ability my father's words from the story that has been told many times in my house, a story that pits him as the temperamental fiance and my mother as the frustrated, teary bride-to-be as he storms out of the home of the precaina hosts screaming: "Why do I need to listen while some fat, sweaty people talk about their sex lives?  I won't do it!" 

Of course, my father did pull it together and completed the precaina, albeit begrudgingly.  Dave and I, however, were not exactly excited to do the same.  Besides, while Dave was baptized, he was never actually confirmed, so there were other obstacles in the way other than our minimal tolerance for pointless preliminary processes.  We decided that instead of a church ceremony, why not have a family member perform the service?

But who to ask?  My first instinct was to ask my cousin Gabe to officiate the service.  Those of you blessed enough to know my amazing cousin understand him to be the life of the party.  Those of you who know him well also know him to have an incredibly large heart, and nothing is more important to him than family.  We thought he would be the perfect man for the job since he is so entertaining while still recognizing the seriousness of the occasion.  When we asked him to do the honors the night after Dave proposed, he immediately and enthusiastically said YES!  We explained that he would have to apply online to get ordained to make the whole thing legal, and everything seemed settled.

Have I not mentioned that family is incredibly important to Gabe?  This is what sparked his immediate enthusiasm to the proposal.  However, this same love of family is also what sparked the subsequent panic.  Shortly after saying yes, perhaps in the span of two or three scotches, Gabe approached Dave and me with fear in his eyes.

"So, once I get ordained, does that make me a priest?  'Cause I can't be a priest.  I'm a sinner!  A SINNER!"

Dave and I laughed and explained that he would in no way become a man of the cloth, but it was in that moment that I realized the gravity of what we were asking my cousin to do.  It's a lot of responsibility to marry two people whom you know well.  You become a pivotal part of the most important day of their lives, which is a lot of pressure to put on a person.  I'm not sure I would want that kind of pressure pushing down on me, and I certainly didn't want to place that kind of burden upon anyone in my family.  I want my cousin and everyone else invited to my wedding to enjoy the ceremony,  to get swept up in the emotion of it, not to stress about it. 

That is why in the end Dave and I decided to hire an "official" officiant, one that presided over my cousin Lisa's wedding.  Her name is Allison Dolan Hall (http://www.alwaysnyweddings.com/index.html); she is amazing and has some really great ideas about how we can personalize the ceremony so that it is uniquely our own.  I've already worked with her to write the first draft of the ceremony, and I'm excited to see how it will evolve over the course of the next year.  I don't want to give away too much in order to preserve the emotional integrity of my future ceremony.  However, if you are planning your own wedding and want to know more, just email me and I'd be happy to share information and ideas about what I've learned from this experience.

Oh, and by the way, I bought a dress.