A Wedding in our Living Room
As noted on the Weddings page, the home and property in West Windsor, Vermont, that I share with my wife Helen, is also a place where couples can get married. While it is quite lovely to tie the knot outside, under our beautiful arch amidst the trees when the weather permits, we also have a charming indoor venue for when it is cold or rainy. A local couple had asked me to officiate their wedding last Sunday in nearby Paradise Park, in the town of Windsor. But when the day dawned windy, cold, and damp, we made a quick switch to have the ceremony…in our living room, in front of our fireplace. It was quite simple, because there was only the bride and groom themselves, plus a photographer. No guests.
In harmony with the couple’s Christian faith, the ceremony included the famous passage about love, from the Bible – from Corinthians, chapter 13 (Excerpt)
“If I speak in tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love… I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love…I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body, but do not have love…I gain nothing.”
The passage continues: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”And, because the couple is Latino, they requested The Lord’s Prayer, in Spanish, as the closing prayer:
Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo, santificado sea tu Nombre; venga a nosotros tu reino; hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo…
After I pronounced them husband and wife, and they kissed, we went outside onto our deck for a champagne toast and cutting the cake (which we then ate indoors!)
Felicidades! (Congratulations!)