by Fred Moleck
Wedding Rituals and Non-Rituals
I’m always amazed to see how formerly religious people work so hard to eliminate anything divine from anything that would smack of ritual, let alone saying the “G” word.I’m equally amazed to see how mildly religious people work so hard to make sure everything is just right in rituals many of us professional church folk can do without thinking.
Like weddings.
Two weeks ago, my entertainment quotient soared with one wedding on one weekend and another wedding on the next weekend.
The first one was celebrated in a landmark Gothic-style chapel (which will remain nameless) on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.
A favored friend from a highly favored family was married before family and friends in a Roman Catholic Mass with a Roman Catholic priest witnessing in this structure.
We actually sang a little, some received Communion, and we all heard readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures.
It was just like church.
Personally, I suspended my usual ire that happens when I consider the high capitalistic background of the patronal family who caused the Gothic structure to rise.
It also boggles my mind to think how many pickles were shoved into jars and how many tomatoes were pureed and poured into millions of bottles to amass a fortune capable of such noblesse oblige.
The liturgy is not the ritual, however, that I want to describe. That ritual occurred at the reception, which followed the ceremony.
Early on in the planning, I was apprised on the various caterers and party sites that were being considered.
After what sounded like a ton of e-mails exchanged and several rounds of “tastings” taking place, not much that was edible was left to chance.
With the menu planning came the order of service, which organized what time the cocktail period would start and end.
What time the first wave of canapés would circulate across the patio.
What time the doors of the posh dining room would open.
The synchronization of the food and drink consumption set a benchmark in crowd control.
Then there was the great cookie controversy. One half of the groom’s pedigree is Mediterranean, which set into motion certain requirements for public rituals like gluttonous intake.
The dolce table (cookies, nut rolls, biscotti) tradition ranks higher than the dowry system.
The groom, however, voiced a strong opinion and viewpoint that there would be no such table.
One of the reasons given was because the various kitchens producing the cookies would place the cookies on their china. There would be many kitchens making many cookies, and there would be unmatched cookie receptacles.
Happily, his observation fell on deaf ears.
When we entered the festive dining area, there was a table with about two tons of various sweet things.
The Mediterranean ethos triumphed. The dolce table and its ritual once again became an icon of liturgia—the work of the people.
The next weekend centered around the second wedding, which was staged in a very chichi arts center with a ritual masterpiece of secular humanism expressed in an agreement ceremony.
Attending were about sixty family and friends, most of who looked to be of Irish descent. Many, if not all, of he older gentlemen had pure white hair and red faces.
Many of these men, but not all, answered to the name Tom.
The ceremony was a carefully crafted service with promises, readings, exchange of vows, and more promises, and very little music.
The verbiage was all brand new to me. I recognized nothing other than a passage from Khalil Gibran. I assumed the “officiant/leader/friend/guy with the big book” wrote them.
One of the ritual moments included, the blessing of the hands of the bride and groom, was new to me.
The rings were exchanged in an orderly fashion with meaningful looks at each other by the bride and groom.
The full script celebrated the couples’ life together. There was an admonition to the friends to be faithful witnesses.
In the many directions and exhortations I did hear the word sacred once. I thought it might have been a slip of the tongue.
The ceremony lasted about half as long as the Catholic celebration the week before.
What was hard to miss was how hard the leader was working to not be ritualistic. The effect was just the opposite.
The words were pronounced with great deliberation. The principles (bride, groom, etc.) measure every movement and tried hard to be graceful.
It was all so deliberate.
The absence of the “G” word made it all the more amusing for me, especially when the “officiant/leader/friend/guy with the big book” said the word sacred once in the ceremony.
I quietly cracked up. The sacred broke through in spite of the guarded language and amateur ritualism.
You know, no matter how anyone tries to be non ritualistic in a ritually charged event, ritual will emerge. Dolce tables, eucharist, meaningful gazes, reading from Khalil Gibran —all point to
Ritual: the repeated patternings of symbolic language relevant to and expressive of the community that generated it.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net