Wedding Day Series

My First Ceremony

While my wife and I was completely college in Canyon, TX at West Texas A&M University, I was licensed into the ministry. I was a Manager for McDonald¡¦s Restaurants, Bi-vocational Music and Youth Minister at a local church, and a college student with a ¡§brand-new¡¨ baby. My life was extremely stressful and I was focused mainly on ¡§survival¡¨. My wife worked at the Police Station on campus in the office and a fellow co-worker was getting married and asked if I would perform the ceremony. I told her to tell her friend absolutely not! I was not ready for that and had no clue as to what to do. My wife¡¦s friend would not accept that answer and came to McDonald¡¦s and pleaded with me to do her ceremony promising that there was only about 15 or 20 people even going to be at the ceremony. With reluctance, I agreed to do the ceremony at the chapel on campus.

At the Rehearsal the night before, I walked into a ¡§nightmare¡¨. There were professional musicians and a wedding coordinator present. (The wedding coordinator ate me for dinner!) After about 10 minutes of disaster, the pianist (who happened to be a friend of mine) called me over to the piano and proceeded to teach me how to perform a wedding ceremony and take charge. I did survive that night and at the Wedding the next day I was introduced to family of the bride that had flown in from England, Scotland, and Australia. The small crowd of 15 to 20 turned into about 300 in a standing room only crowd in the small chapel. I did make it through the ceremony, but the reception became the last straw. At the reception, I went to the bride to get the Marriage License so that I could sign the appropriate blanks. At this request the bride pulled me to the side and told me that her and the groom had eloped the week before and this was just for the family. At that I told her that I would be signing something, so I signed a reception napkin and went on my way. This was a great start to many more interesting Weddings.

Since then I have performed Weddings in large beautiful sanctuaries, small sanctuaries, city parks, back yards, living rooms, etc¡K Each location has its own strengths and weaknesses. The sanctuary Wedding can burn hours of time decorating and cleaning while the backyard Wedding brings problems of wind and rain. Each location poses its own distractions. Like the time I was performing a backyard ceremony for a 78 year old man and 73 year old woman and as I was pronouncing them husband and wife, the dog next door was barking so loud that I became distracted and introduced the couple using the woman¡¦s last name instead of the man¡¦s.

The honorarium (the pay) has been very interesting also. The honorarium as ranged from $100 to $5; from watches to a handwritten card; from dinner at an elegant restaurant to a $5 gift certificate to McDonald¡¦s. As I have always told couples, I don¡¦t care what they give me because that is not the reason I perform the ceremony and believe you me they take me serious!