Recent Unique Weddings
I’ve been a pastor since 1985 and I have already lost track of how many unique weddings I have officiated. The very first wedding I officiated was unique because the couple wanted their wedding ceremony to be a private affair. So they both went to my house and I solemnized their marriage privately right in my own home! That was amusing to me haha!
I thought I’m already a retired pastor but it’s interesting that I still do get wedding requests sometimes.
Beach Wedding for Tattooed Couple
Just last month, December 16, 2016 I was asked to solemnize the marriage of a young couple. I could not refuse the request. The girl happens to be my wife’s niece. I’ve known her since she was a baby. My wife told me her niece wanted me to officiate in her wedding because she wanted to also have a long-lasting marriage just like what she has seen in me and my wife’s 37 years of marriage. I thought that was an interesting reason to choose me. It touched my heart of course. We love this girl like a daughter. May they “live happily ever after” which is what all of us want to have in marriage.
This wedding was unique to me because this was the first time that I solemnized a marriage of two young lovers who have lots of tattoos on their bodies. This was also my second time to solemnize a marriage right beside the beach. This was a unique wedding for me also because it was the first time I got wet in the rain hahaha! As the drops of rain began to fall, I hurriedly said, “You may now kiss the bride!” Despite the rain which stopped after a while, it was a happy event all the way up till evening.
More Unique Weddings
On another occasion just this past weekend in Barangay Bahile, Puerto Princesa in Palawan, there was also a wedding of a young couple. I am always fascinated with weddings done in the province or in some remote barangay. I guess maybe because I grew up in the province and it amuses me when I see weddings in the province. It was also a happy occasion and the reception was in a nipa hut building. I enjoyed that one.
I was not the officiating minister for this wedding. But what made this an interesting experience for me was because the officiating minister asked me to co-officiate in the wedding ceremony with him. And so I did and it was fun. I have another unique wedding experience of becoming a wedding photographer but that’s another story in another blog.
Wedding Banquet in Another Barangay
The couple was married officially at Barangay Bahile. In the afternoon, everyone ate lunch at the groom’s home at Barangay Salvacion. Everyone enjoyed the wedding reception under the nipa hut roofing and the twirled yellow and green coconut leaves reminded me that it was a celebration out in the province. Really nice!
Weddings are wonderful. God divinely instituted marriage. It is not just some man-made ritual. And its really wonderful to see young couples promise to love each other for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do them part. Marriage is a blessing from God so we can experience life and love here and now and not just in the life hereafter.