June is wedding month.
Maybe it owes to the Roman goddess of women and marriage, Juno, for whom the month is named. Maybe it goes back to when most people were marrying immediately out of high school or college. It might also hearken to a day when receptions were simpler outdoor affairs, and the weather was dependably pleasant.
Nowadays couples wait longer to marry, which is good. They marry any time of year, which is not bad. Their parents plunk down tens of thousands of dollars for elegant indoor receptions, which is not good. And the weather is hot in Dallas almost anytime, which is bad.
As a veteran minister of the nuptial circuit, I have seen all sides of the wedding business across a career of knot tying. (Too many of these turn out to be slipknots, but that’s another story.) Too many weddings seem to be more about the parents of the bride and groom than about the bride and groom. That’s nothing different from their parenting history.
We parents search in vain for immortality through our children. This makes our kids servants to our cause, instead of their being persons of their own to be cherished, marveled at, and given away to the world fully enough formed that they can make their way in it without us.
The mother of the bride stands first when the organ signals that her daughter begins processing up the aisle. The father of the bride walks beside her for the purpose of “giving her away.” (If we had it right in these post-Victorian times, the parents of the groom would have similar duties.) The parents are not the center of attention, however; they are head cheerleaders on the sidelines with the choicest seats in the house. They are first to bless.
I get to perform two weddings this June and one on the first day of July. I expect to cry at all of them, since I know and love all those involved.
The last one will challenge my composure most. That day I will walk down the aisle alongside my oldest pride and joy and give her away to a man I grudgingly admit to being worthy of her love and loyalty. During a prayer, I will stealthily don the priestly garb and take my place before her — and him — and beside his preacher father.
Let the sharing begin. From now on, it will be every other holiday with the in-laws and other accommodations to decisions her mother and I will have no party to. We will have to learn to offer our opinion only when asked. We will fail.
We will have pictures and home movies of when she was little, of when she was just ours. We won’t linger long there, because they would also remind us of how young and slim we once were. We would rather live in hope anyway — hope for what our daughter will become now that she has one to shape her in love the next step of the journey.
Oh, and hope for grandchildren we can spoil without guilt, give back when we get tired, and see the revenge they will enact for us upon our girl for growing up and wanting to take our job.
There are consolations.
