Wedding Blues

I drove to Lansing last Friday to play a wedding. I've been to a lot of weddings, more than your average Joe. I figure besides pastors, musicians are the ones who see more weddings than anyone else. I've been to well over a hundred weddings in my time as a musician, and the result is that I've become a bit of a cynic, and jaded by the whole experience of the typical wedding.

Why is it that preachers at weddings always laud the new couple? It is common to hear the pastor exclaim the virtues of the new couple, especially at Christian weddings. On Friday, the pastor talked about how much this new couple would be an inspiration for everyone else. Why? Why are they suddenly so compelling an example to the rest of the world, simply because they are getting married? I've often thought that for many young Christians, the barometer of having your life "together" in the Christian world is the fact that you are getting married. That's just crazy.

The fact is, like all couples, life for this couple is going to be difficult. Let's just be honest: the odds are 50-50. That may be a cynic's view, but it is objective truth, unfortunately. There are all kinds of reasons why their marriage might fail, and let's hope that they have the strength of conviction and character to stay together. It's never a numbers game, I know, but when I looked around at the three other members of my quartet that played that day, I realized that all three of them have suffered through a divorce. Two of their wives had affairs with other men, and the other's relationship fell apart when he moved here to go to school, largely because the woman didn't like that they moved away from Chicago. No one marries anticipating a divorce--but it happens, sadly, even to the best intentioned couples.

I grow weary of the idealism that is seen at weddings. It seems so saccharin to me. I've been to weddings where the reception becomes a love fest for the married couple, where people feel compelled to step up to the open mic and declare how wonderful the people are. I think that's all a bunch of hogwash. If I have a party at my wedding, I want people to just have a good time, and not bother talking about my bride and me at all. Open the keg, eat some great food, and be happy for us. Honesty, and being real, is what I want if I ever get married. I'd tell that to the pastor too--don't waste your breath on talking about us. Just do the vows, make it sincere, and don't give a long sermon on I Corinthians 13. We've all heard it a thousand times, and we don't need to hear another pastor blather on about it just for the sake of doing another sermon about love never failing. I hate wedding sermons in fact. They're all cookie cutter images of the other, and I grow weary of them. I view life through a lens similar to what John Newton once said: “I’m not what I ought to be, I’m not what I want to be, I'm not what I'm going to be, but thank God I’m not what I was.” If there was a sermon, I'd want it to be about that.

Life's a journey, and a marriage is a stop on the way, where two people have decided to share the rest of their lives together. It's a beautiful moment, worthy of celebration, indeed. Companionship makes life better, but I'm not sure that life gets any easier when you get married. At least that's what I've seen. Why put extra pressure on a couple to be inspirational? Let's start with staying committed to each other first. Seems to me that's a full time job in itself.

I suppose I'm jaded. I admit that. I really do loathe weddings, which is why the eloping thing appeals to me. I don't know what a wedding would look like that would make me happy. I'm so disillusioned with Christian weddings that a wedding at the justice of the peace sure seems appealing. But then it's not before God. And then what's the point?

I'm sure I'll change my mind, when I meet the right woman, and have a big ole churchy wedding. I just hope I don't gag.