Five Weddings and I Have Questions

In the past five weeks, my wife and I attended five weddings. The weddings were outdoor and indoor, big and little, religious and secular. We know the families well and we were outsiders. We traveled and stayed close to home. It has been rejuvenating and wonderful to share the joy of these couples and their families. Yet, as I reflect on these weddings, I have questions. 

Planning a wedding is rehearsal for marriage. The dynamics that will become the backdrop of married life are developing for most of these couples. The event itself is a reflection of the couple and, sometimes, their parents. Some weddings are big parties, others are an affirmation of tradition, and some feel like skating on silk. 

It has been more than thirty years since my wife, our families, and I planned our wedding. It is clear there is a continuum of involvement in wedding planning for the grooms. Some sit to the side and do as they are told. I am a theatre director and English teacher. I like control. I was actively part of putting together our wedding. Most of the grooms seemed involved in the wedding, although one joked about the triviality of his participation.  

Gender roles were very much on display at these weddings – and there are things that baffle me. Of course, I want to walk my child down the aisle. I can’t imagine NOT doing that. However, in several of the weddings we saw, only dad walked the bride down the aisle. Often the groom walked down by himself. Both parents walking their child down the aisle was the exception, which surprised me. One of the side effects of this is that certain parts of each family are more visible and others slip into the background.

What surprised me more was the line at the end of the ceremony: “Let me introduce for the first time, Mr. and Mrs.” Many of these weddings finished that with “Groom’s first and last name.” So the bride was just Mrs. That felt strange to me. Twice, it was “Mr. and Mrs. Groom’s last name.” I guess that is a little more egalitarian, but not much. Twice, it was Mr. and Mrs. Bride and Groom and Groom’s last name,” so at least the bride got her first name in there. One time, the bride and groom were introduced separately, although the bride was introduced with the groom’s last name. I did not take it as a given that my wife would take my last name. We discussed it. I know so many people who do not change their names when they get married, so maybe this was not a representative sample. 

I have only officiated at one wedding. While I hope I did an okay job, I am sure that our rabbi would have done it better. Weddings feel far too important to leave to amateurs. Two of the weddings had a friend officiate. They were fine. One had someone I assume they hired. He did better with the ceremony, but it was clear that he didn’t really know the couple. This is one of myriad reasons to be part of a community. The ceremonies that I thought worked the best were led by officiants who knew the couple and were experts on how to make a wedding work well. 

Most of the couples wrote their own vows or wrote letters to each other. In most cases, they read these, although once, the officiant read them. These were universally beautiful and the best part of the ceremonies. When this part was absent, the ceremony felt far less personal. The readings in the weddings were, for the most part, traditional, tried, and true. They felt routine. The music was highly varied and included both religious and pop as well as tunes that I had never encountered. In a few ceremonies, the music felt more meaningful than the readings. 

Several of the weddings were grounded in religion while others appeared to go to great lengths to minimize religious references. I wonder how the couples who come from different backgrounds will deal with religion. Will they avoid it, as they did in their wedding? I worry when the way we deal with differences is to push them to the side. Why not celebrate our different cultures? 

I have questions about the receptions. I am not fussy about the food (but I love it when someone cares enough to worry about us vegetarians) and I don’t drink much beyond the toasts. My wife and I like to dance a little. What is important to me is being able to connect with the people who invited me. I really appreciated it when the bride and groom and their families made it a point to greet their guests. I loved being able to meet family members I did not know – often very important people in this celebration! When some of these key people were inaccessible, I wondered if everything was okay. 

The toasts were very good. None of the weddings had those stereotypical horrible wedding embarrassments. The best toasts were obviously written in advance. The impromptu toasts, while clearly heartfelt, had less impact. However, a few times these toasts were written out and still ended up an unfocused ramble. I was curious about who did and did not speak. The bride’s father always spoke, but not always the bride’s mother. The groom’s parents sometimes spoke, but often, the mother less so. The best man and maid or matron of honor spoke in all but one, yet the other members of the wedding party, especially the siblings of the couple, didn’t always speak. When some of these important people did not toast the couple, I had questions. 

At the first and last of our five weddings, no one clinked glasses asking for the couple to kiss. I didn’t know how they managed that. It was brilliant. When I heard the clinking at the other weddings, it made me question the practice. Not only did I not miss it, but it gave the bride and groom the opportunity to move around more freely. 

I could list question upon question about the choices of song for the mother-son and father-daughter dances. There seems to be one that is clearly the standard choice for Christian families for the father-daughter dance. I did wonder about the father of the groom and the mother of the bride. Why not include them? Why not invite the families up to dance with each other after the traditional gendered dancing. 

Two of the weddings threw the bouquet and garter. Like the glass clinking, I didn’t miss these when they were absent and found it a bit jarring. One of these weddings seemed to take it seriously and the other played with them in a funny and sexy way. It was nice to have an activity that called people to the dance floor, but I wondered about the unspoken message about the importance of marriage. Okay, we were at a celebration of marriage. 

None of our five weddings was for a same sex couple. None of them was a second marriage. I wonder how these parts of the celebration would be seen in other forms of unions. 

Because symbols are so important to me, and I worked in a world where implied meanings reins, I was highly conscious of the combination of all the elements during my wife and my wedding. Not everyone appears to do this. As a theatre director, I think about my audience. But a wedding is not a play. It is for the couple and their families. The audience is as much witness as participant. For some, the real focus is on the couple, their experience, and how the wedding elements help them both celebrate and prepare for their life together. Still, I have questions. 

Reading for Treasure – Thanksgiving Leftovers

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

Here are some Thanksgiving leftovers: articles I have been saving, but haven’t neatly fit into a theme or category for the past few posts. 

One member of my family used to get very upset when another member of the family would reply to texts simply with, “k.” This article from Lifehacker makes the case for not sending quick and short text responses like this one for a simple reason: it comes off as rude: “Don’t Text ‘OK.’”

If it isn’t clear from the name of my blog, I am an enthusiastic fan of Fred Rogers. There has been some conversation that his tone and style would not work well with kids today. I disagree and so does Mary Pflum Peterson in this older article from The Washington Post, “What Happened When I Showed Vintage Mister Rogers to my 21st Century Kids.” 

One of my most recent posts questions some of the traditions of weddings – many of which focus on gender. This wonderful Valentine’s Day article from The Atlantic makes the point clearly, “If You Want a Marriage of Equals, Then Date as Equals.” Yup. 

Speaking of couples with some issues, how about Lord and Lady Macbeth? I laughed out loud reading, “A Letter from the Condo Association to Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth” from McSweeny’s. While we all might have had neighborhood issues, these are on a Shakespearean scale! 

While the above piece is satirical, this satire piece from last winter’s Chicago Tribune by Rex Huppke is right on point in its treatment of “deniers.” Whether it is the pandemic, insurrections, or other clear and verifiable events, Mr. Huppke joins them to cry, “A Major Chicago Snow Storm? That’s What the Media Want You to Believe!” Snowstorms? Hurricanes? Bah, humbug! They are all conspiracies. 

Finally, a wonderful and relevant discussion of an interesting dice game called “Drop Dead” in the fantastic blog, Math with Bad Drawings. This game, which you could certainly play, also demonstrates a lesson about complex systems and the idea that more is better: “When A Trillion Dice Are No Better Than A Dozen.” 

I am currently rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune before seeing the movie! 

Reunion Gratitude and Growing Up: A Reflection

Thomas Wolfe wrote that you can’t go home again. That is a good thing. Recently, I gathered with many of my college theatre classmates. I didn’t go to the university events. I didn’t go to a football game or tailgate or anything like that. I went to a small party at a classmate’s home as I have done every five or so years. There were about thirty or forty theatre alumni there. It was better than going back to our college home, thirty-five years ago. 

I chaired two of my high school reunions. I like reunions. Yet, there is something very special and different about this particular reunion and these people. We competed with each other in college. We may have continued that at our early reunions, but I don’t remember that. 

What I do know is, for me, that need to compete is gone. I look at my classmates and marvel and celebrate their outstanding work, spaning theatre and many other fields. I delight in their company in a way I did not in college. I appreciate them like I never could have imagined when we were in school years ago. Some of the folks who came were people with whom I spent a great deal of time. Some I knew in passing, and now I wish I had spent more time with them. 

Like my other reunions, some of my closest friends were unable to attend. None of the people present were at my wedding or my children’s mitzvahs. In other reunions, that might have been awkward or disappointing. That was not the case at all; it was an ideal chance to catch up, renew relationships, and celebrate.

I feel so grateful and fortunate to have second and third and fourth chances to meet these people. I am so grateful to the committee that worked hard to preserve our bond. Their work has allowed me to see so much more than a “reunion” version of our college selves. Each time we gather, I get a better glimpse of the more complex and real people we have become. 

At nineteen and twenty, I couldn’t get past myself. I was stuck and confused and struggling. I still am, but in my fifties the challenges are different. I am enjoying the confusion, choosing the struggle, and working hard to get out of myself and out of my own (and others) way. That was not true thirty-five years ago. Now, I have an opportunity to go beyond my college inadequacies, to present myself as I am now. To laugh at and, yes, even apologize for the sins of my college past. 

We hear about coming to terms with the past. We talk about forgiveness and putting the past in its place. At my reunion, I got to complement the past. I got to reconnect with my classmates, some of whom I have gotten to know far better in the years since college. And I appreciate them more each time I see them. 

This reunion made me long to see these folks again. I see many on Facebook and that whets my appetite. It enables me to see my classmates more fully and feel at least a little connected.

Everyone was not present. There were many people who were missed, talked about, or joined us via video call. While many of us have attended many of these reunions, it is wonderful when faraway faces are able to join us. When they are not, they are sincerely missed. These evenings are punctuated with the question, “What is happening with…?” 

I was not in love with everyone from my theatre program in college. However, that is meaningless now. Our relationship is now about a past we are rewriting, revising, revisiting, and renewing. 

College was never this good. Now it is.