The order of liturgy

Most wedding ceremonies are scripted out long before the day of the event.  Sometimes people know months in advance; sometimes they follow a script that's hundreds of years old, passed down through religious practices that have become formal and unvaried, including Wagner's Wedding Chorus on the way in and Mendelssohn's Wedding March on the way out.

As you might imagine, ours is less finished at the moment.  It's close.  We know who the participants are (even those beyond the two of us).  We know more or less what order things will happen.  We still have a small tune-up to do with one transitional moment.  But the sequence is pretty much set, to the point where I should be able to lay out and print the programs this weekend.

The difference, though, is that we have no idea exactly what anybody will say.  We've asked a number of people to speak briefly, and won't know until we hear them what their words will be.  We've asked a friend to play for us as we assemble, as Nora and I enter, and as we depart, but we've asked her to choose her own music, and won't know until we hear her violin what those tunes will be.  We're writing each other a letter for the other to read, and it will be delivered and opened on the spot, as letters should be.  We're writing vows to one another, and the other won't have heard those until that very moment. 

Can you say weepy?  Good heavens, I'm not going to be able to go three consecutive minutes without choking up.  I may have to have a stand-in groom for the ceremony, while I sit off on the side and get all verklempt.

In the more traditional model, the groom has almost nothing to do at all.  He shows up with his buddies and stands in the front of the room while his new wife is delivered to him (this is a precursor to his lifelong expectation that everything will be delivered to him, mostly by his wife as he sits in the La-Z-Boy watching college football).  He turns 90 degrees at some point to face her instead of facing the congregants—a tall order, but our boy can do it.  And then the vows are read to him, five or six words at a time, and he parrots those back.  Bada bing, bada boom.  Done. All he has to do is show up and do as he's told, and nobody will remember anything about him ten minutes later.

So this wedding, although scripted in sequence, will have plenty of surprises, for us as well as for you.  There won't even be a rehearsal, since our officiant and his wife will be in Maine running a music camp until Saturday morning, so every bit of it will be happening for the first time.  We'll ask your forebearance as we occasionally stop to regain our composure.