Wedding Count 500: What happens after performing your 500th wedding ceremony?
500 rings. 20,000 guests. 1000 very fortunate people. 1 humbled Officiant.
Five hundred sacred moments that share a sweet familiarity, while each containing a unique and unfading power of that wonder-filled promise to choose to love….as two people stand breathlessly before me speaking those ancient words.
…to love, comfort, honor and cherish, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, and forsaking all others, being faithful from this day forward, Till death we do part.
I often feel in that moment time stands still as two loving people devote themselves to a timeless love. Their words echo over the rest of their lives, transforming identity and forging their futures together into an unbreakable union of love, respect, serving and belonging. This is worth celebrating not only for a day, or even like my Indian friends who celebrate for a week, but to be celebrated as the first of the rest of their days to celebrate the greatest gift they have received. The unconditional promise to be loved by another human being despite all the flaws in oneself and all the imperfections in the other. To be chosen for life. And to choose to do likewise.
Unspeakable privilege.
Amidst familiar tradition and civil requirements, each ceremony has a unique identity reflecting the uniqueness of each bride and groom. This continues to captivate me after five hundred and keeps me passionate about the next five hundred.
Honouring a couple in front of their family and friends and reflecting their love and relationship authentically is very important to me. It must feel like their ceremony and not someone else’s. Those who know them best must walk away and feel like they have experienced an authentic and profound celebration of the union of two people they love.
The practical details, ceremonial content and preparations have become understandable easy and smooth. Yet for each ceremony, I trust for a very specific word of Life and True encouragement for each couple. Of the thousands of good, positive, helpful and nice things I could indeed say… what is the one thing that the couple needs to hear, is ready to receive and can be put into the foundation of their lives together… This is my prayerful intention with every ceremony.
100 more weddings and counting still to come this year…100 or so scheduled for next already and counting…
My grandma who has married 50+ years before grandpa passed always used to ask me, “Randy, did you tie a tight knot?” Yes, grandma, tight as I could. A knot that under pressure is made to become tighter and stronger such that the ropes themselves will break before the knot. I have learned to encourage couples that though it is their love that has brought them to this moment of marriage promise, but now (in the words of Deitrich Bonhoeffer): “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
~ Randy Harris
Tags: Officiant, Reflection, Wedding Ceremony, Weddings