Just as there are cat people and dog people, there are wedding people and reception people. Most people, I imagine, belong to the latter category — impatient for the ceremony to be done with, eager for the party to begin. Because that’s all a “reception” is, really: a big fat party, only one where certain people are unusually dressed and there is this pestilent clinking of glasses.
I’m a wedding person, in part because there is no end of interesting things to look for: Will the mothers cry, and what will the nature of those tears be? How will the father comport himself as he walks his daughter down the aisle? Will the bridesmaids be fetching, and will there be obvious flirting between them and the groomsmen? The clergyman: Will he be blandly ecumenical or pointedly parochial? In reciting the vows, will the couple be clear and strong, or quavering and uncertain? And the kiss? Will it be brief and chaste, or one of those save-it-for-the-dark numbers?
Then there’s the music. You will inevitably hear, as the guests gather, Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, whose angelic triplets will be carelessly broken. Rarely now is the bridal march from Wagner’s Lohengrin used as the processional — it has been hopelessly lampooned as “Here Comes the Bride” (“all fat and white”). Instead, you will likely hear one of three trumpet voluntaries: Purcell, Clarke, or Stanley. If there is singing, it will be a friend of one of the principals, and she will be bad. The recessional presents no end of exciting possibilities: Mendelssohn’s march has never ceased to thrill, and, if the organist can handle it, Widor’s toccata, taken like the wind, is a knockout.
I had always harbored a touch of a desire — just a touch — to plan a wedding. To actually script and run the thing. But I figured, reasonably enough, that I would never get the chance. Then a strange and wonderful thing happened: My sister — whom I had always taken for a reception person — decided that she would get married. In New Orleans. At a hotel. On July 19. She and her fiance had but a single question for me: Would I organize and conduct the wedding?
At first, my plans were grand and glorious. I was a kid let loose in the nuptial candy shop. I was going to produce a wedding to end all weddings, a model to the world (or at least to those few attending): impressive yet tasteful, thought-provoking yet blithe, religious yet unobjectionable, informal yet purposeful.
My study was intense. I reflected on the ceremonies of several denominations. I reviewed Scripture. I read poetry. I thought about the wedding at night before drifting off to sleep, and in the morning before rising.
I was going to begin with a little address, to give the “service” a dash of what The Book of Common Prayer calls “solemnization.” Then there would be copious readings, both secular and not. In due course, a judge — right and proper — would step in and administer the vows.
And the music! It would be done through recordings. That way, you could have whatever you wanted, performed by whomever you wanted. Jessye Norman would be free to sing. And the organ would be played by a great virtuoso, not by Mrs. Brown, the little old lady whom the church can’t get rid of because she’s a member and has been there forever.
Finally, I got it all together and e-mailed an outline to my sister. When she called back, rather than e-mailing, I suspected there might be a problem. “Uh, Jay?” she said. “Isn’t this a little over the top? I mean, we’d like something short and sweet out on the veranda. It’s going to be a million degrees. And don’t you think that running back and forth from a CD player would be a little . . . well, tacky?”
I had gotten slightly carried away, yes. My sister argued that the word ” solemnization” — as in, “We are here to witness the solemnization of a union” — sounded perilously like “sodomization.” A half-dozen e-mails ensued between us, but we still couldn’t achieve the desired medium: less than a papal ordination, more than wham-bam-thank-you-Pastor.
On the appointed day, we all arrived at the Columns Hotel (where Pretty Baby, the soft-kiddie-porn movie, was filmed). The wedding was to begin at 4:00. At 3:50, my sister and I were still negotiating the language of the opening and trying to settle on a Psalm. At about 3:57, she decided what shoes to wear, and I lighted on Psalm 100. The opening, I would more or less wing. We trooped downstairs.
It was hot. Very hot. The bridal party emerged and formed a perfect tableau. The guests, though fanning themselves, seemed rapt. The trolley clanged in the background. The singer, a friend of the bride’s, was excellent (spoiling tradition). The white-maned southern judge — straight from central casting — played his part to a tee. After months of deliberation, of debate and delight, the wedding went beautifully.
And the reception, oddly, was nice, to.
JAY NORDLINGER
