There is a story that we pastors often tell stressed couples before weddings to make them laugh:
During the wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the priest with an unusual offer.
“Look, I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor, and obey’ and ‘forsaking all others, be faithful to her forever,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.”
He slipped the priest the cash and walked away. The wedding day arrived.
When it came time for the groom’s vows, the priest looked the young man in the eye and said,
” Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life and swear eternally before God and your lovely wife that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”
The groom gulped and looked around and then said in a tiny voice, “I do.”
After the ceremony, the groom pulled the priest aside and yelled,
for us into Christianity.” – is the comment that I heard from a wedding I once officiated. Over the years, I have been conflicted by couples who come into my office asking me to officiate their wedding. Normally, I have no problem doing a wedding for a church member or Christians who do not have a church home. What has been a growing trend for a number of pastors, including myself, is what to do with non-Christian weddings?
