Weddings

Weddings

Noel Laflin

6-14-17

There’s a wedding coming up and I am pretty excited.

I’ve always been a sucker for folks tying the knot - even the time when I missed a ceremony as I showed up at the wrong church.  Since the service was just getting under way, due to my late arrival, I took a seat in a pew in the back and settled in.  When the beautiful bride being walked down the aisle was not my old girlfriend, I quickly deduced that I was indeed crashing someone else’s party.  Kristina still chides me to this day.  But hey, I tell her, it makes for a funny memory and a good story forty years later.  That’s about the time she gets eerily quiet.

Then there was the wedding in the woods a few years back.  Guests all met up in the small town of Cottage Grove, Oregon, and followed the lead truck as it barreled deeper and deeper into the evergreens.  After successfully navigating several old logging roads we came to rest in a fairy land of tall trees, giant ferns, and a narrow trail leading down to a rushing creek.  The bride wore flowers in her hair and a simple, yet beautiful dress.  The groom, a fellow whom I have known since he was two years old, walked barefoot, dressed in a peasant blouse and trousers.  He even had flowers sitting atop his curly locks.  He reminded me, just a bit, of a jolly hobbit or elfin king.  The couple exchanged vows at a waterfall. There was no preacher. There were no groomsmen or bridesmaids. No one could really hear what was said, due to the roar of the water, but it was lovely nonetheless.  The natural scene appealed greatly to my pagan heart.

And of course there have been wonderful weddings for siblings and friends – even the two weddings in Spanish.  At the later two ceremonies, I simply took my cue from the rest of the congregants when they stood, kneeled, or sat.  We spoke a common language called alcohol at the reception, however, so all was forgiven in no time.

I have been a groom, best man, groomsman, and a guest on too many occasions to recall, a florist, a janitor sweeping up the rice outside the church, as well as the ‘Right and Revered Reverend Laflin’ for five weddings. That title is of my own choosing actually; I find it kind of catchy. Two of the couples were straight and three gay. As I pretty much use the same ceremony format, I simply have to watch out for my pronouns, as in his and hers, his and his, and hers and hers when I address the couples standing before me.  I haven’t screwed it up yet.

 

I was once even hired to guard the gifts for a friend on the night of his wedding.

I thought I had done it all.

But, up until now, I have never been the father of the bride-to-be.

In a few weeks my title will change to father of the bride.

And for that, I am pretty excited indeed.