Exchanging Vows

When I first came up with the idea of having someone in the family officiate at the wedding, so that we could have the wedding on a Saturday and make it easier for the people who work full-time to attend, Mom was my first thought.

Mom has a great speaking voice, loud and clear. She is someone that everyone loves, respects, and looks up to so I knew she could carry it off with the right amount of authority. And of course, she knows and loves me as much as anyone, making her a special person to have close at this important moment in my journey with Ken.

I called Mom to discuss this idea, and she immediately said No, No, No. Did she have religious objections to doing a civil ceremony? No, not really. Was she nervous about speaking in front of the family? Of course not. Well, as I discussed it with her, what it seemed to come to was her certainty that she’d be in tears (happy tears, of course) and that would prevent her from saying her part.

I tried to convince her that I would not have a problem with tears. We could pause and cry and laugh as much as we wanted to, and that would all be part of the ceremony. But she just didn’t think it would work.

OK, I thought, on to Plan C. (Plan A was a courthouse wedding on Friday.)

Anyone in the family who would like to do it would be fine with me. So I put out an email mentioning this. I quickly received a few more no’s.

Hmmm

Plan D – we could hire someone. I wasn’t fond of this idea because we were trying to keep the event simple and flexible. Once we brought in professionals, I thought, they would make demands, and we would have to commit to a specific time, and meet their requirements, and so forth. It would start to feel a lot more formal and I felt it would detract from our simple goal of making our public commitment to each other.

As I thought about the objections I’d received from the family, it occurred to me that perhaps the assignment was not clear and people might think there was more to the job than there really was. I decided to more clearly define the role and responsibilities, which I did with my posting to this blog on Valentine's Day.

http://marriageandmetrics.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-you-one.html

Yes! This is what people needed. I quickly received several Yes, I’ll do it emails, including one from Mom.

Doesn’t she look beautiful? It’s not every 80 year old mother who can say she did something she’d never done before and did it perfectly. Mom, I’m so proud of you, and so honored that you did this for us. And you didn’t even cry!