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Favorite Wedding Ceremonies from the Bargain Wedding Minister

Pleasures and Pitfalls of Being a Wedding Officiant (A Handout for My Colorado Free University Class “Become a Wedding Officiant”

When the planning is easy and the wedding ceremony comes off as planned, it’s a joyful job. You meet couples you like, hear interesting stories of how they met, and receive their gratitude for your having brought off the ceremony with feeling and aplomb. You may even be the recipient of a delicious wedding reception meal. On those occasions you’ll be grateful to whatever power you praise for having blessed you with the opportunity.

But while Colorado is liberal in whom it allows to perform wedding ceremonies, to do it effectively requires a skill set not everyone possesses. You’d best be a powerful, even passionate, public communicator. You are the director of and actor in a performance, the master of ceremonies who speaks to the bride and groom and their guests, the audience. From the time the bride takes her place beside you and the groom, you’re in charge of the mood and tempo of the wedding service.

The unexpected abounds and dealing with it gracefully is part of an officiant’s job. The father of the bride may, instead of letting her take the last few steps on her own to where you and the groom wait, may bring her right in front of you and, with his nose six inches from yours, stand there till

you ask, “Who gives this bride in marriage?” before getting out of your way so you can start the wedding ceremony.

The sound system may fail so that you have to project your voice to be heard at an outdoor wedding, where sound not amplified doesn’t carry past the third row. Or the bride and groom, hands clasped, stand so close together you have to move to their side to make eye contact with the gathering. Or the unity candle won’t light in the wind. Or the D.J. doesn’t show up. Or the bride, despite her solemn vow the wedding will begin on time, hasn’t even arrived, much less gotten dressed, by the scheduled hour.

All but the last of these are remedial. A bit of cunning on your part and you can keep things rolling. What you have no power over are what I call wedding flakes, people who take your time, let you script a wedding ceremony for them, say they’ll mail or bring by a deposit, and never contact you again. Maybe they thought you too young or old, your hair not worn in the style they favor, or something you said – like “Can we please start the wedding on time” – too threatening. Whether you’re an ordained minister or non-denominational officiant, wedding flakes tell you fibs and seldom return your calls. They just have found that their second cousin’s best friend’s ex-spouse is a mail order minister and will conduct the wedding ceremony for $25 less than the bargain rate you offered them.

On the whole, playing an important part in wedding services is a glorious gig that puts you in the presence of people in love on one of the happiest days of their life. Their bliss is contagious and, however briefly, you get to bask in it.

A Few of My Favorite Weddings

Given that no two wedding ceremonies are exactly alike, any wedding officiant who’s performed hundreds of wedding services ceremonies over the years, and especially an officiant who customizes every wedding ceremony, will find it difficult to nominate favorites. It’s rare that a wedding isn’t fun and it’s always an honor to be chosen to officiate. Here are a few that come to mind, albeit for different reasons.

City Park

One of the prettiest places in Denver sits in City Park just west of the yellow building at the west end of the big lake. Tall evergreens provide a measure of seclusion, and a statue of Robert Burns, the beloved Scottish poet, gives the venue a special touch. On an autumn afternoon, with the setting sun spilling golden light over brown, gray and orange clouds, I conducted a “short and sweet” -- that’s what the couple. like so many couples, requested – wedding ceremony. At the precise moment I uttered the pronouncement, a flock of Canadian geese, as though cued by an invisible wedding planner, rose from the duck lake north of us, made a circle directly overhead, and continued their excursion southward.

Between the splendiferous sunset and the geese’s aerial display, I was utterly mesmerized and took the light and flight show as a good omen for the couple.

Jamaican Special

The groom’s father called me late on a Wednesday night. “Can you officiate a wedding at ten in the morning this Saturday? We had a minister but he just told us he can’t come.”

“Go out and buy a lottery ticket,” I told the gentleman. “I’ve got two weddings Saturday but neither is in the morning. You’ve got yourself an officiant.”

The next day the bride and groom, both natives of Jamaica, came by to plan the ceremony. The lady was fuzzy about what she wanted, clear as clean water about what she didn’t, namely every idea I put before her. When at last we came up with an outline she found acceptable, it included having the wedding pair seated throughout the ceremony except when they got up to sign the license while a friend sang.

“This is different but workable,” I thought, relieved to have a script. The plan lacked only vows for the ring exchange, which the bride, having turned down the several I showed her, promised to email me after looking online. “And we want you to give a sermon on love and marriage,” she added in her soft, authoritative manner.

“Then while you’re searching for vows, please find a message on marriage you think suitable.” I didn’t mind doing something unexpected but feared whatever message I devised might displease her. She said she’d email me both vows and sermon that afternoon.

Not until the next day did the vows arrive with the instruction: “Say whatever you want about love and marriage for 10 – 15 minutes.” How nice – a sermon assignment on 24 hours notice. Talk about customizing a wedding ceremony. But once my big Oooops subsided, ideas flowed my way. A marriage covenant is both a gift and responsibility. The neatest one-liner I remembered from my days as a divinity student: Grace is free but not cheap. And the four relationship killers, things to resist lest they bring down your marriage: criticism, condescension, defensiveness, and withdrawal. Bingo – the makings of a wedding message that would go beyond the usual bromides.

But my best idea, for which I have my experience as a professional speaker to thank, came to me only later while playing tennis (!) -- ask audience members to contribute their take on the topic.

I arrived 40 minutes early at the chapel and approached one middle-aged and two young couples. All agreed to join the colloquy. One recently wed man spoke of the privilege of having something to look forward to every day because “you get to go to bed and wake up beside the person you love.” The other youthful pair talked about the joy of having a spouse who is also your best friend and how that friendship deepens over time. The older male volunteer said, “I’m a contractor and see the inside of houses we remodel. The pictures couples choose to hang above their beds always interest me. In one home, it was of a bullfighter and bull – I hope not as a symbol of dominance. In another there was a nude woman with a flower in her mouth, maybe as a spur to romance. And in another bedroom I saw a painting of two children holding hands as they walked along a forest path. That struck me as the perfect metaphor for marriage: together you go on an adventure through a realm full of surprises. Like those children, my wife and I don’t know how far the path extends but we welcome each day on it we have together.”

How blessed I felt to hear those messages. The wedding guests’ faces reflected their delight in the impromptu contributions. And groom gave me a bear hug when the wedding finished. However successful I felt the ceremony to have been, I didn’t risk eroding that impression by asking the bride’s reaction. To my relief, she was occupied receiving congratulations – and smiling.

Cameron and Amy

Take the case of Amy and Cameron. He had a crush on her in 5th grade but, shy lad that he was, waited till 8th grade to say, “I like you” before running away for fear of rejection. In 9th grade, Amy said “Hi” in the hall, followed by a quick “Do you want to go out?”

Cameron stammered uh’s for what they both claim was three minutes before blurting, “Sure!” Neither had eyes for anyone else thereafter.

Their wedding ceremony was great fun for me because I told this story of their romance’s beginning – to the delight of their guests. And the bride and groom? They clutched each other’s hands and gazed into each other’s eyes from start to finish and may not have heard a word I said.

Curtis and Misty

Curtis will always be one of my favorite grooms. He was a lanky house painter living in a little row house a stone’s throw from Denver’s grand industrial byway known as South Santa Fe. He asked if I’d do a wedding ceremony by telephone hookup to his fiancée, a woman named Misty, who happened to be a guest of the state. “Sure,” I said.

As always, I arrived early. Curtis had on a white dress shirt and tie and his paint spattered baseball cap. The incongruity tickled me. On his walls hung some German meddles and documents, including a several swastikas. Nervously I asked, “What’s with the swastikas, Curtis?”

“Oh they’re just part of my German heritage. Don’t worry, I’m not a nazi or nothin’.”

Relieved, I turned my attention to Curtis’s gorgeous German Shepherd, Talus, who sat chained by the back door. Petting that magnificent animal was a delight and would have been even if Curtis had not spent over $2,000 to have him shipped from a breeder in – you guessed it – Germany.

Prison wedding venues require precise planning. The warden has to grant permission, and the phone call has to come from the incarcerated party must come at precisely the designated time and not exceed fifteen minutes. At the appointed hour, Misty called from her temporary residence. With Curtis’s older brother and sister in attendance, we held the wedding ceremony. I’ve never seen a happier or more grateful groom. He called later in the day to thank me again, which touched me deeply. It was a bargain wedding all around.

So you see, it can be the venue, the customization, or the couple themselves that make a wedding ceremony memorable and my job as the wedding officiant all the more enjoyable. Until I get to officiate a scuba, rappelling, or skiing wedding, these three services will linger in my memory for being as good as it gets.

Contact Gary at:
303-321-6607
talkdoc@ecentral.com
3009 E 10th Ave
Denver, CO 80206

Site updated: May 2011