c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ As wedding season begins, which shall I remember?

The bride who stood in the sanctuary and screamed at me because I wasn’t letting her dictate every detail of the ceremony?

Or the groom who hobbled into the rehearsal on an ankle broken in a drunken misreading of a balcony’s width?

Or the lawyer suddenly gowned like a princess?

Or the commercial apparatus sweeping couples along on a path strewn with invoices.”We should write a book,”a volunteer wedding director said to me one Saturday in June some years back.

Maybe so. Weddings might be our strangest hour. In their complex interweaving of religion, culture, commerce, family stress and magazine-cover sentimentality, weddings say a lot about who we are as a people and the archetypes living deep within us.

It starts with the telephone calls. Which gets booked first _ the church, the caterer, the florist or the club? Right there, the family’s values come into view.

Or maybe it started long before in the shaping of expectations. Women’s roles may be changing, but weddings tap ancient archetypes. For a day, the career-minded professional becomes a princess, virginal and alluring, carrying her parents’ pride down the aisle, having her hand taken from dad’s control and given to another.

Parents spend money they don’t have, as if a $1,000 gown and $100-a-plate banquets equaled the dowry of yore. People who barely know the couple watch the event closely to make sure the tribe’s values are kept safe.

As a pastor, I worried that this discontinuity between real life and church-wedding life would trivialize faith and portray the faith community as a quirky provider of special moments. But no else seemed to mind. Attempts to modernize weddings or to discourage lavish spending met fierce resistance.

Strangest of all might be the pre-marital counseling required by most religious traditions. For a few couples, sessions with the pastor are a welcome opportunity to reflect on their hopes and worries. But for most, pre-marital counseling seems an intrusion, not unlike the obligatory meeting with the caterer to plan a menu, only longer.

From my chair, I would see profound needs, living proof of why 50 percent of this June’s weddings will end in divorce. One season, I kept a private tally. Of 10 couples, all 10 had experienced alcoholism in their families, two of the brides were survivors of incest and six of the couples had divorce in their backgrounds.

Yet they had little inclination to address their issues now. They had an event to plan. I remember one couple: The groom had a history of drunken bouts of rage, the bride was afraid. But when I suggested they attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings together, angry parents stormed my office, accused me of ruining their daughter’s wedding and demanded another pastor.

As I watched families plan guest lists and seating charts, I often felt a deep sadness. They seemed to be pursuing some archetype of village: two families merging their deep tribal heritage in the sight of all villagers. The reality was they were mostly strangers: parents who had moved far from their childhood homes, children whose trajectories were up, up and away, and guests whose links to the event were tangential, such as business ties or long-ago neighbors, two-thirds of whom didn’t reply or attend.

The happiest wedding I recall was the couple who said,”We don’t know anyone here except our church friends, so let’s just have a church party together and everyone bring some food.” Control battles are intense. I remember one rehearsal where the bride was shouting, the groom was wondering if he too should be shouting, while the bride’s father was grabbing arms, mothers were glaring at each other, a visiting pastor wanted to run the show, and everyone had read a different bridal magazine about what the perfect event should be. Our mild-mannered organist was so horrified she almost walked out.

At the center of all this, however, are two people filled with hope. The odds are against them, but still they hope. They cringe at their parents’ behavior, resent the stress, and often wish they had just eloped, but still they hope.

Hope will carry farther than any perfect event ever could.

MJP END EHRICH