Monday 31 January 2011

The minister said “Ass”…

Mr M and I have opted for a religious ceremony in my church which is also where my Mum and Dad got married in 1977.

Neither of us are particularly religious but as I mentioned earlier Mr M is a traditionalist and I personally couldn’t imagine myself getting married anywhere but in church.

Most Presbyterian ministers are very very strict in their views and I’ve known lots of couples who have been refused permission to marry in the church and have babies baptised, so I was prepared for an interrogation on our religious views, our living arrangements (and hence sleeping arrangements) and our enrolment in a pre-marriage course.

Traditionally you meet with your minister at the Manse to discuss these issues and so after putting off the phone call, I built up the courage to contact my minister to arrange a meeting with him. Unexpectedly, he quite casually said “Some day after Church will do”. I couldn’t believe it!

We met with him on Sunday after service (when there was a baby’s baptism and I got very emotional) and were so surprised by his laid-back and down to earth attitude. We felt very much at ease with him, although I already knew he was a lovely, friendly man I hadn’t needed his services personally before. We talked through what we would like and he told us what was normal practice. He told us what other couples had done and then said “But they did things ass about face”.

Ass about face! I almost choked!

We came away looking forward to having him marry us – a man who we could be relaxed with and happily share that special moment with.

3 comments:

Cate Brickell said...

that's great that you can feel comfortable with him! will make you feel so much better on the day!

Loulabelle Kent said...

He sounds like a fab funky minister! xx

Anonymous said...

Great to hear! Same thing happened with our priest, he was so LOVELY. And we weren't expecting that at all. We had all our paperwork ready but were fully expecting him to veto some of our music or readings or whatever, but he was fine with everything.

Told us great stories of arranged marriages he has presided over before and mad things that happened to him while he was out working in foreign countries.

We left on SUCH a high. It makes a real difference when the person who is marrying you is an ordinary nice human being.