If you believed the media, nearly all of us are getting excited about the Royal Wedding on Friday week. Well, not all of us: I noticed that BBC1 are showing a repeat of Shrek that afternoon, and the wedding in that cartoon is more appealing to me.
Not that I wish Wills and Kate any ill-will. Trial by media and marriage by media: no fun. They really do need prayer for a long and happy marriage.
But the coverage of all the royal frills will encourage all the existing wrong expectations people have of weddings. No expense spared – even if you haven’t got a royal budget. All about the day, rather than the life – the wedding, rather than the marriage. A focus on the couple, rather than on the mutual sacrifice that a marriage requires, as Giles Fraser recently got into trouble for saying on Radio 4’s Thought For The Day. The coverage of who’s attending – whereas, as Maggi Dawn recently commented, all you need is the vicar, the couple and two witnesses.
So it was a joy today to register a very different wedding. The bride runs a toy library that uses the hall of one of my churches. A year ago she found faith in Christ through an Alpha Course run by the local New Frontiers church, who worship on Sundays in a local secondary school. But without anyone haranguing her, she came to the conclusion that it was wrong in the sight of God to be living with her partner outside marriage. So at 11 am today she was married, and at 12 noon (in the building of another local church) she was baptised.
It was wonderful to co-operate with her pastor on the marriage ceremony. No trimmings – both bride and groom had had that for their first marriages, and they knew it made no difference. A simple service, with about twenty friends and family present. Not even any hymns, but some worship music on CD – even if the laptop misbehaved for the music during the signing of the register!
I think I’ll remember today’s wedding for longer than next week’s.
Big Circumstance 
Hi Dave,
Long time no comment! I love reading all your articles (and Facebook entries) but just don’t have time to comment these days. Your article today prompted quite strong emotions, which I won’t go into here, so I quickly read the article that you mention by Maggi Dawn. I believe she left out the most important ‘need’ in her list, which annoyed me – GOD! I wonder why that was?!! Not top of her priorities? Is she actually a Minister?
Keep up the good work you’re doing though. Mary<
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Hi Mary,
Welcome back – always good to hear from you, when you have the time.
I’m sorry if the post stirred up strong emotions for you. I’m sure you know that nothing like that was intended.
Yes, Maggi Dawn is an ordained Anglican priest. She works as a chaplain at Robinson College, Cambridge. I must admit I didn’t pick up on the nuance you noticed. I just took her to be describing the minimum needed for a wedding service, rather than what is needed for a marriage. I’m quite open to the thought that I misread her post, but that’s how I took it.
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I didn’t realise the costs involved with the Royal wedding… ouch! http://www.friday-ad.co.uk/article/the-royal-wedding-a-royal-price-tag
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coolinfographics – I don’t condone the amount of money being spent on this wedding, but the article you link to is very misleading. If you look here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/8155625/Royal-wedding-marriage-will-cost-economy-5bn.html you will see that it’s not purely the Royal Wedding that will cost the economy 5bn, but the combination of 4 Bank holidays so close to one another. Three of those days would have meant businesses closed anyway and it’s not Kate & Wills fault that some dishonest workers will use the opportunity to pull off a ‘sicky’ for the 3 working days inbetween. Also companies who let so many employees off for annual leave meaning they have to close need to re-examine theire employees’ contract of employment!
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