On Weddings

The best way to see what the church thinks about marriage is to look at the marriage service. One thing that interests me is the movement of the service. It’s actually quite similar to baptism. At a baptism, the godparents and child/catachumen stand in the narthex for the first part and don’t enter the church itself until they have been exorcised and recited the creed. After the baptism itself, the newly illumined and godparents hold on to the priest’s stole, then follow him in procession while he holds the cross, around the table with the Gospel book on it.

At the marriage service, the couple and their attendants start at the back of the nave. There they exchange the rings, then move into the center of the church. The couple is crowned, share the common cup, then perform the “dance of Isaiah”, which is a similar procession as at baptism. The bride and groom hold hands and the priest’s stole. He holds the cross. They, with the wedding sponsors, process three times around the table with the Gospel book.

Both baptism and marriage function as rites of initiation. The service starts outside the community, then when pledges have been given (the creed, the rings), the priest, person/couple receiving the sacrament, and their sponsor(s) process to the middle of the church--taking their new place in the community. After the main part of the service (the baptism itself/the crowing), the first steps taken are following the cross, around the Gospel--the main anchors of the Christian life.

It’s fairly clear how a baptism is an initiation--the person begins as a catachumen, on the periphery of the community and ends as a full member of the eucharistic community. In marriage, the couple begin as two separate entities but end as a new unit--the basis of a new household. Marriage is seen in the church as both private and public. The life of the couple is mostly private, but it does have an impact on the community as a whole. So marriage is not just a celebration of a private commitment. It’s the initiation of the couple into the community of married people.

When the service concludes, there's the reception. It's not *really* a part of the service, and you can have a wedding that's perfectly fine without one. However, whenever something big happens in our lives as Christians, first we have a service, then we eat. After baptisms, after funerals, even after an ordinary Sunday liturgy. Eating together cements our identity as a community. It also acknowledges that after you go through a big transition, you need to be fed, literally.

So in the church, a wedding is a sacrament, and then a party. The wedding-industrial complex wants to sell you on the fantasy of "your big day". Of course it's a big day, but that's because of what happens in the sacrament, not because of perfect photography or a big poufy dress or fabulous flowers. None of those things is wrong, but it IS wrong to focus on the external details to the point of neglecting the spiritual reality.