Chapel of Love
Aug. 22nd, 2009 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947
Spring is here,
The sky is blue,
Birds all sing
As if they knew
Today’s the day we’ll say, “I do”
And we’ll never be lonely anymore.
Because we’re,
Goin’ to the chapel
And we’re gonna get married.
Goin’ to the chapel
And we’re gonna get married.
Gee, I really love you
And we’re gonna get married.
Goin’ to the chapel of love.
Bells will ring,
The sun will shine,
Oh, I’ll be his
And he’ll be mine
We’ll love until the end of time
And we’ll never be lonely anymore.
*****Chorus repeats****
(Chapel of Love: Dixie Cups, 1964)
2009 is turning out to be the Summer of Nuptial Love. I will have attended three marriages before the beginning of Fall, each one involving a different type of involvement and interest. Obviously, Prisa and Joe’s wedding in July was the most momentous for Kathy and me (see Nothing to Do With Me). Katie, Prisa’s Maid of Honor and Best Friend, and Chris’s marriage was the easiest because all Kathy and I had to do was show up and enjoy it. My niece Brenna and James’ bridal event last week was the most distant and most curious. I suppose the location of their ceremony qualified it as a destination wedding.
The meaning of a “destination wedding” is easily understood; most people could explain it quickly. So I was surprised to find that neither the Merriam-Webster or Oxford dictionaries listed it. I found definitions of WEDDING, but no mention of destination wedding as a distinct entry. Perhaps “traditional” dictionaries consider destination weddings as social trends or popular cultural events instead of a primary noun. I did, however, discover two alternative online sources. Encarta called it a “plural noun”, defined as “a wedding in a distant place: a wedding for which the couple travel to a far-off location to have their marriage ceremony”. Wikipedia was more elaborate: “a destination wedding is any wedding in which the engaged couple, alone or with guests, travels to attend the ceremony. This could be a beach ceremony in the Caribbean or on the California coast, a lavish event in Las Vegas, or a simple ceremony at the home of a geographically distant friend or relative”. You can always count on Wikipedia to define the obvious, especially when it comes to practices of popular culture. But at least Wikipedia amplified the term. Destination weddings have existed for as long couples have married in places far away from the invited family and guests (My father called them “expensive and inconvenient” before the term “destination” came into vogue).
Before I married into Kathy’s family of 8 girls and two boys, I never traveled long distances to a wedding simply because I was invited. In my family, if we weren’t conveniently living in the same vicinity, we didn’t attend. Since my mother’s family all lived in Mexico City (or its outskirts), there were few expectations and no hard feelings about our lack of attendance. The only exception was when my sister Stela traveled to our cousin Rosita’s wedding, because she was a bridesmaid in 1969. When I attended the nuptial masses and receptions of my Mexican cousins Carlos and Nena in 1970 and 1973, I was living with my aunt for the summer in Mexico City. Kathy’s family offered a whole new perspective on destination marriages (and other family occasions) and the filial imperative to be present and supportive. Whenever there was a wedding, you could always count on a sizeable contingent of aunts, uncles, and cousins to arrive. There is an almost tangible drive to never let a sibling or relative down by allowing them to feel alone, isolated, and unsupported in an emotionally anxious or stressful time – sad or joyous. Because it is such an immense family, with 8 original aunts, 2 uncles, and 38 cousins, a visual impact is pretty easy to produce. Of the five family weddings of Kathy’s nephews and nieces outside of Los Angeles, I have attended three, Toñito two, and Kathy and Prisa all five. Jeff, Debbie’s son, married Lynn in Chicago, Margi, Katy and Kevin, Mary Ellen’s children, married Will, Dave, and Anastasia in San Juan Capistrano and twice in Washington D.C. (see Weddings and Funerals for Kevin’s), and, finally, Brenna, Beth’s daughter, married James in Loomis, a town outside of Sacramento, California. When my sister Gracie’s son Timothy married Hilary in a town outside of Portland, I was already sufficiently influenced by Kathy’s modeling to put aside my initial concerns of work and expense and traveled there with Prisa in 2002. I found that destination weddings, especially in Kathy’s large and varied family are great opportunities to get together and confidently experience a new and unusual place. Besides feeling satisfied that the family member we came to support felt loved and protected, I always had a great time in a new locale. I met new people and learned something about myself. This last trip was no exception.
A total of 23 relatives were present at Brenna’s ceremony. They came by air and land. Of Beth’s 6 surviving sisters, all five of the LA contingent (Kathy, Patti, Meg, Tootie, and Tere) were in attendance, except for Mary Ellen in Washington D.C. Work and travel obligations prevented her brothers Mike and Greg from coming, but four brother-in-laws (me, Dick, John, and Mike) acted as their proxies. Eight cousins made the trip (Toñito, Prisa, Danny, Brigid, Marisa, Maria, Maggie and Anora), along with a newly wed husband (Joe) and fiancé (Jonaya). If you count Beth and her 3 children (Garrett, Caitrin, and Brenna) there were enough people to constitute a traveling revival meeting (see A Moveable Feast).
The flight into Sacramento Airport with Kathy, Meg, Tootie, and Maria, gave me the opportunity to listen to the latest family updates and prepare myself for the events to come. Once I decided to attend this celebration for Beth and Brenna, I didn’t give the wedding much thought. I knew Brenna converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and that she and James would be married in a Mormon ceremony. This accounted for my original misconception that we would be traveling to the Temple in Salt Lake City for the ceremony. Kathy and her sisters clarified that Beth and James were being married in a religious ceremony in the closest Mormon Temple, which was in Oakland. Only official members of the church were permitted to attend. They further explained that we would be joining the bride, groom, and the wedding party for a “ring ceremony” and reception at a banquet venue in Loomis, a town north of Sacramento. I interpreted all this information to mean that we were attending a slight variation of the traditional religious and civil ceremonies that constituted a marriage. Brenna and James would have a private religious ceremony followed by a public civil ceremony and festive reception. It didn’t seem unusual. I spent the rest of the trip reading, adjusting to our hotel accommodations, and psyching myself to assume the role of freelance photographer. I’d be the “official family” photographer, trying to catch candid and traditional moments from dressing up to dancing.
The benefit of carrying a conspicuous camera (a Canon Rebel T1i, my retirement gift) in your hands and around your neck is the access it gives and the perspective it provides. I was able to get an early view of the bride, her mother, and her maids as they dressed, interacted, and prepared. As I noticed at Prisa’s wedding, the Maid of Honor (Caitrin) and the bridesmaids (Marisa, Vanessa, Christine, and Rachel) were there to deflect the stresses and anxieties that the mother and bride felt when preparing for a major, once-in-a-lifetime event, and to keep the atmosphere jovial and festive. They did a great job. They were young, photogenic, and funny. I took tons of pictures and felt sufficiently confident in posing them in traditional shots (buttoning wedding dress, putting on makeup, shoes and garter, and the bride surrounded by her bevy of attendants holding bouquets). I added some spontaneous shots in the hallway, elevator, doorways, and in cars as the party left for the ceremonial site.
The venue was beautiful. The ring ceremony and reception took place in a redesigned nursery that included a shady, verdant orchard and a catering facility. There was an open-air, terraced, patio providing a lush, floral stage for the bride and groom and their party, with plenty of standing and sitting room for the guests. Along side of this patio was a completely glassed in banquet hall that gave the appearance of a landscaped, interior rain forest. The sequence of events began in the traditional manner with the wedding party processing in and taking a position apart from the bride and groom. Brenna and James then walked past them, taking an elevated and isolated spot with a presiding bishop of the Church. The bishop welcomed the family and guests of the nuptial pair, and then shared their written responses to questions he had given them about each other and how they met (a variation on the Newlywed Game). At the end of this reflective exercise, their mothers, Beth and Michelle, joined them in lighting the “Unity Candle”, symbolizing the union of two families into a new one. Then the bishop watched as the couple exchanged rings. With that transaction completed, he introduced Brenna and James, as husband and wife, and the wedding party processed out. That was the transition signal for the family and guest to move to the glassed-in hall and begin the reception, while the wedding party escaped to take pictures. Except for the absence of alcoholic beverages, out of respect for the religious practices of the bride and groom, the reception was typical. A string quartet played in the background, hors d’oeuvre were circulated, and guests mingled, met, and talked. Eventually the wedding party returned, toasts were made, the wedding cake was cut, and a D.J. took over the music and dancing duties for the rest of the evening. Later, Kathy and I, accompanied by Meg, Tootie, Patti and Dick, retired to Islands Restaurant for drinks and post-wedding analysis.
We concluded that it was a fine wedding and the couple was off with a treasured memory. The venue was beautiful, the food delicious, and everyone looked fabulous. It was only in recapping the ring ceremony itself that we realized that vows were never publically expressed or exchanged, and the bishop never blessed the union. We never heard “I, Brenna, take you James…. in sickness and in health… until death us do part.” Meg suggested that vows were probably stated in the Temple when the marriage was “sealed”, but she didn’t know how that was done. Rather that speculating further, Dick quickly researched “Mormon Weddings” on his iPhone and gave us a summary of a Wikipedia definition:
“A Mormon wedding is called a ‘Celestial Marriage’, and it is considered an eternal affair. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) recognizes only two kinds of marriages: a civil marriage and a celestial marriage. Civil marriages are legally contracted unions under local law and are dissolved upon the death of the participants (‘until death us do part’). However, celestial marriages, also known as ‘sealings’, bind the participants as husband and wife for all eternity, if both are righteous. Only an official Mormon priest or bishop within a Sealing Room, in a dedicated temple, can perform celestial marriages. Only members of the LDS church who have a temple recommendation may attend an LDS wedding. The wedding is referred to as a sealing because the husband and wife are sealed beyond death into the next life. Many Mormon couples also hold a wedding reception or Open House after the sealing ceremony in another venue that is open to all family and friends. Some couples choose to recreate a more traditional wedding ceremony, or will simply perform certain traditional acts, such as the throwing of the bouquet, first dance, etc.”
This information explained the brevity of the ring ceremony, and the absence of public vows and blessings. We assumed those parts of the wedding were performed in the religious ceremony during the sealing. Instead of heading directly back to our hotel rooms, Meg suggested visiting Beth, the Mother of the Bride, to see how she was doing. There we toasted and congratulated her on her daughter’s wedding and reception. Smiling wanly, she was relieved that it was over. I have found that weddings at their best are complicated and emotional productions. When travel, long distance communication, and new religious practices are factored in, they can become stressful. Beth and Brenna had performed admirably, and we were glad to have shared and recorded the experience.
Although marriages occur throughout the year, summer is the most popular of the four wedding seasons. Summer is the time for love. Summer vacations were the halcyon days of freedom from school and jobs, and a time to enjoy life and each other. It was the season that offered the best opportunities for romance, childhood crushes, teenage infatuations, and adult wooing. Kathy and I married in the summer of 1975. Summer officially ends with the Autumnal Equinox on September 22 (my birthday!). With that new positioning of the earth in relationship to the sun, this Summer of Nuptial Love comes to an end. I will never forget this particular season, and its three weddings, because it was highlighted by the marriage of my daughter Prisa. All three had their distinct style and flair, and all served the purpose of etching an indelible memory of a young couple beginning a journey through life. I’m sure there will be other busy nuptial seasons in the years ahead (especially in a family with 38 cousins), but 2009 will always be special to me.
Chapel of Love
Date: 2009-08-28 12:04 am (UTC)This was wonderful. And you took me to the place! I now realize that one of the reasons I really like reading your writing is that they have all been Affirmations of Life! And incidentally, it was also a nice birthday present for me! You posted this on August 22, MY birthday! Yours is September 22! Who'd a thunk it?! And as you probably already know, the number '22' is a Master number in numerology! My best to Kathy.
PS. How does it feel not going to school after all these years?
TRH
Re: Chapel of Love
Date: 2009-08-28 04:29 am (UTC)Take care.