Why I Love Weddings

Today, I spent some time shopping and talking on the phone while doing so. I was talking to my friend Katy about the wedding I went to on Saturday, telling her about how beautiful it was. And it was.

While we were talking, we came down on opposite sides of the "love weddings/don't love weddings debate." I love them. But, I felt like I had to qualify that.

I'll explain. I don't love the stress of weddings or the fussiness of weddings or even a lot of the traditions of weddings. And I don't love all the pretense, the doing things just because that's what's done or because that's what looks good. I mean, I'm all for a reverent ceremony. Marriage is a sacrament, people.

And I guess that's what I love about weddings. I love that we get to witness something divine. I love the hopefulness of seeing two people about to start a life together. And knowing that, out of that decision to begin a life together, more lives can be touched by the love that those two people have. I guess I just feel like we are all infinitely richer for seeing that love, for having another example of love to follow.

During the ceremony, the minister, who is a friend of Jon and Sabrina's, reflected a bit on what he has learned in his own fourteen years of marriage. He said that he has begun to feel that marriage is one of God's favorite tools to use in making us become the people He wants us to be.

I'll admit, I can be a romantic. Much to my own embarrassment (and the chagrin of others), I love a good romantic comedy. I like to see the couple get together in the end. Those movies give me all sorts of warm fuzzies. But, even more amazing is to think of the kind of love that the minister spoke of during the ceremony. The kind of love that allows and even wants God to transform it through marriage, the kind of love that leans not on its own understanding but in all its ways acknowledges God.

Weddings let us see a bit of that love, and the marriage that emerges from that wedding lets us see how the selfless, redeeming love of Christ can take an institution that is as likely to fail as it is to succeed and yet transform it into something that shows love to all who are witness to it. And, as Jon's father said the night before the wedding, it is Christ in us who allows us to love. He sustains us and gives us love, even in those times when we cannot muster any feelings of love in ourselves.

So, I guess that's why I love weddings. They remind me of that kind of love. They give me hope, and they let me anticipate the good that will come from the love of that couple. And maybe, just maybe, I love weddings because I'm a bit of a romantic. After all, I want to see the couple get together in the end. But I also want to see what happens for them, for us all, after they get together.

Dearest readers, I love you. I love you all,

Sara