J’s dad read another passage from QF&P – number 22:35. It’s a good old one, from 1693, and we did edit it slightly in order to take out the bit about setting an example to your servants (ha!). That particular bit was contextual to the time that it was written, but I think that we felt that the rest of the reading was incredibly universal in its message: that love is the most important thing that you can have in a marriage, and that real love focuses on the right things. Paragraph five is essentially the Quaker version of “for richer, for poorer etc.”. I still cannot get my head wrapped round about paragraph four, but it sounds clever and very Quakerly…

A&Q number 23 is about marriage. It reads:

Marriage has always been regarded by Friends as a religious commitment rather than a merely civil contract. Both partners should offer with God’s help an intention to cherish one another for life. Remember that happiness depends on an understanding and steadfast love on both sides. In times of difficulty remind yourself of the value of prayer, of perseverance and of a sense of humour.

Later in the ceremony, nearly at its close, my mother read my absolute favourite poem of all time – A.A. Milne’s “Us Two”. This is one of those soppy things – this poem means a huge amount to me for family reasons and I’d always known that I’d want it read at my wedding if ever I were to get married. And I had it! My mother did a fantastic job of reading it, and it couldn’t have been anyone else to do so.

Out of some of the Quaker weddings that I’ve been to, our Meeting for Worship was probably one of the more solemn occasions. But it was very wonderful, and very moving, and there were some people who stood up and said some fantastic things - including one or two non-Quakers which is particularly special given that I can only imagine how intimidating that must have felt. The only moment when I nearly cried was part way through the Apachi blessing that J’s littlest brother read out. I am surprised that I didn’t when an old family friend read out Don Paterson’s ‘Two Trees’ – you can find the poem by scrolling down here.

Poetry isn’t strictly unprepared ministry. Whatever.

The basic pattern to the vows is this (copied from the online version of Quaker Faith and Practice):

Friends, I take this my friend [name] to be my wife, promising, through divine assistance, to be unto her a loving and faithful husband, so long as we both on earth shall live.

You’re allowed to change “through divine assistance” to “with God’s help”, which neither of us wanted to do because neither of us are that keen on the word ‘God’ when describing what we believe in. You’re allowed to substitute “so long as we both on earth shall live” with ”until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us”, and you’re allowed to preface the whole thing with either “In the presence of God” or “In the fear of the Lord and in the presence of this assembly”. I think it goes without saying that we didn’t do either of those things either.

J went first, but that was only because if one of us hadn’t decided to go first beforehand then we could both have ended up talking at the same time! We exchanged rings after both vows were said - rings are not, incidentally, a formal part of a Quaker marriage, but we’d decided that we wanted them – and then signed the certificate. My hand was so sweaty and shaking by this point that my signature looks like a child’s scrawled it. (We walked up the aisle into our seats in the Meeting room together after everyone else was gathered and it took me three goes to get round the corner – not something I expected at all until it happened.)

Our witnesses were R and J, a retired couple from Durham. He was the Quaker chaplain on the university’s ‘faith team’ when we started up in Durham and they really were surrogate grandparents for all the Quaker students. We blame their endearing yet enduring relationship, J’s marvellous cooking, and their beautiful black labradors for us getting together – at least in part, anyway! When we asked them on the phone to be our witnesses they both cried, and J keeps telling us how utterly speechless she was – there’s got to be a first time for everything

There was a brief tedious legal bit where the signed certificate had to read out word for word, and then we were into the part of the Meeting when anyone can stand up and give ministry.

Quaker wedding ceremonies are held in the style of a normal Meeting for Worship – that is, in silence and ‘unprogrammed’ (apart, of course, from the vows). Because there are no clergy in Quakerism*, it is the couple themselves who stand up when they feel that the time is right and make their vows to each other. Presiding over the ceremony is the Recording Clerk, a nominated Friend from the area, whose duty it is to see that all the legal necessities are carried out.

This is actually for reasons greater than the practical issue of having no regular leader. There is a lovely quote from George Fox on marriage that J and I had discussed in considerable length:

For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests’ or magistrates’; for it is God’s ordinance and not man’s; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together: for we marry none; it is the Lord’s work, and we are but witnesses.

 This is open to all sorts of interpretations, but I think that we had really come to the conclusion that essentially we already felt married. That we had already been brought together by what-some-people-call-God**, and that the ceremony was all about the ‘witnessing’ aspect – our families and friends and worshipping community witnessing the commitment that we were making to each other.

As a result, everyone present at a Quaker marriage signs the certificate after the Meeting has ended. They are signing that they witnessed the couple making that commitment, and they are signing that they will continue to uphold and support the couple in their marriage or whatever else life throws at them.

(A reminder that J and I both wrote ‘rough guides to Quakerism’ here and here.)

*Or, alternatively, no laity. Discuss.

**Sorry if this is getting a bit theologically heavy. My personal feelings about the word “God” are a subject for another day.

We get the proofs of the official photos when we return home tomorrow, although this is one that they’ve put up on their own website in their bridal portfolio – I’ve added text to the image to protect their copyright:

(Yes, there are a couple of other photos in there from our wedding, if you stumble across the photographers. No, we’re not the couple whose faces you can see. Ha! Ours are the hands with the rings and the cupcakes.)

We’re at the end of our week’s honeymoon in south-west Devon, and it’s been a strange week. Ever since the wedding we have both been completely and utterly and overwhelmingly exhausted. This week I have been ill and we both have been depressed. It’s been raining most of the time, and we haven’t really known what to do with ourselves – although as J points out, if it’s justified long lie-ins and veg-ing about in the cottage then maybe that’s been no bad thing. We’ve even had (albeit unreliable) internet.

We’ll have plenty of holidays together. I don’t feel cheated by not having had a particularly glamorous honeymoon. Apparently there’s an old French saying that a rainy wedding means a happy marriage. I’m hoping that they throw in health and wealth as well for a rainy honeymoon?

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I’m getting used to being Mrs HisSurname, although I still haven’t gotten around to practising a new signature – I’ve signed under my old name a couple of times, the first time through habit and the second of well-it-doesn’t-really-matter-anyway necessity. I’m keeping my maiden name for work at least for the minute, as I’m only there ’til next April and people are still trying to work out who I am without throwing a new surname into the mix – but I will probably apply for future jobs under my new name, and it’s at that point that it will really feel like I’ve properly changed over.

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Oh, and, I did it. I finished the ceilidh dress! Photos to come when I have some [hint hint]

I’ve sent the following list to J and he’s having a look over it. But seeing as I know there are various photo-enthusiasts on here, including at least one who has played the part of wedding photographer before… what do you think I’ve missed off?

• Signing of the civil register
• Quaker Meeting guests general shots
• Couple shots (inc. photos of hands and rings?, on the awesome wooden train set in the kid’s playground?)
• Couple with bride’s parents
• Couple with groom’s parents
• Couple with all parents
• L with MOB
• L  with FOB
• L with parents
• J with MOG [if J wants]
• J with  FOG [ditto]
• J with parents
• L with bridesmaid
• J with best man
• Couple with best man and bridesmaid
• Couple with all siblings
• Couple with his immediate family
• Couple with her immediate family
• Couple with all immediate family
• Couple with his elderly relatives [I have none left]
• Couple with all his family
• Couple with all her family
• Couple with all family guests
• Reportage-style shots of all reception guests

We’re not going for one of those everyone-who-was-at-the-entire wedding photos. They’re not quite to our taste – cheesy, a nightmare to organise, and in reality you can’t see anyone properly anyway.

But we will have made it really clear to the photographers that we want photos of everyone, not just the photogenic people. There is only one child coming to the wedding and he is neither family nor female, so hopefully that will reduce the temptation to go “Awww, look at the pretty frilly cuteness!!!” and then forget half the other guests by mistake.

The “all siblings” photo is a reference to the fact that my sole bridesmaid is my sister and J’s best man is his brother. That worked out really well, actually. We are both the eldest of three siblings, and in each case the next sibling down is of the same gender (before each having a little brother to complete the set).

In J’s case best man was an easy choice. It was either going to be his brother or his roommate from the first year at university. And in my case it was an easy choice – but if I hadn’t had my sister it would have been a complete and utter nightmare. Basically, I have a lot of close female friends but I’d struggle to name a single one as ‘best’ and the potential for politics… well, let’s not even go there. Friends who I’ve known the longest and who are like alternative little sisters? Cousins? Secondary school friends? University friends – Quaker, college, Maths? I can guarantee that whoever I’d've chosen, somebody would have been offended. And it’s not like the bridesmaids have an official role in a Quaker ceremony anyway. I will be walking down the (makeshift) aisle – with J.

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4

4 days ’til we get married. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.

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6

I am completely, disablingly, mind-numbingly depressed, and have been for the past week.

The ceilidh dress may not get finished in time. Something will, but it may not have the butterfly panels.

Our priority has to be to get everything in order, and to regain some level of sanity so that we can enjoy our own wedding day.

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11

And if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I am having a nightmare of a time trying to sew uninterfaced silk taffeta without it puckering like crazy. Yes, my top tension’s reduced. Yes, I’m using a size 1.5 stitch length, yes, I’m sewing slowly, and yes, I’m down to a size 10 needle. I still get this:

That inside seam is now unpicked (again) and frayed beyond repair. I’m going to have to insert a 2 inch wide vertical strip in the back of the bodice because I don’t have enough fabric to recut the pieces. It’s a design feature, don’t you know? (Actually I think it will look quite cool like that anyway.)

But the question remains as to how to stop the fabric puckering quite so atrociously. Option one is to interface, either the whole of the back bodice or just the seams. Option two is to try and procure a size 8 microtex needle and keep my fingers crossed.

I’m leaning towards option two, but of course that means getting to a sewing shop and I can’t because I’m at work (doing nothing) all day. I’ll be going within a mile of my favourite sewing shop tomorrow actually, when I head out for psychotherapy, but it’s not open on a Wednesday because it’s That Sort Of Shop. So I’m looking at Thursday at the earliest before I can start sewing on this dress again.

Grrrr.

What I really need is a day off in business hours to gather supplies and put some serious time in, but I’m not going to pull a sickie. This trying-to-be-honest thing is a pain in the backside sometimes.

Nonetheless, we have tried to keep an eye on these things. A good example would be the people we’ve chosen to have as our caterers. Our remit was that we wanted someone who would do vegetarian food, who would be able to cater for vegans and at least the fairly standard set of allergies, and who would be able to do more than just a finger buffet – I get grumpy very quickly when I get hungry, and my wedding day will be no exception!

Local is better, naturally, but we compromised on Nottingham (~50 miles) in order to have these people, who are a community association helping socially disadvantaged people through their organic allotment volunteering schemes. Sounds too good to be true? That’s what we thought. The thing that pushed us over the edge was the fact that if you want, they will come and serve you out of their solar-powered converted 1970s camper van! Oh yes! We are not, alas, going for this option – we decided on reflection that a sit-down meal might be that bit more practical.

In other news, our vegan-friendly wedding cupcakes are being made by a woman who we discovered at a local ethical fair who donates 100% of her profits to animal charities (we’ve chosen the Sumatran Orangatans), our plates and bowels come from here*, and we’ve been lucky enough to have both wedding and reception venues within easy walking distance of both each other and good public transport links.

To put a slightly different slant on things, my wedding dress may not be re-used but it did come from a one-woman independent business. The wedding reception venue is a church-based community centre on the edge of a public park. Not sending out paper invites may have saved us money but it will also have saved us a heck of a lot of paper.

To an extent, we’ve gone for all of this because we are left-wing hippy liberals and that’s just the sort of thing we like anyway. But to an extent it is about practising what you preach and making choices that you genuinely feel are right for this world. I think that once again we are reaping the benefit of feeling the freedom to do things differently.

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*Though yes, I do appreciate the fact that there is a bit of an ethical minefield with this sort of thing. Reusable versus compostable. Natural materials versus natural destruction. Proximity and transportation. Third world trade versus third world exploitation. Is there even such a thing as an purely ethical choice? Probably not.