Since getting back from the beach, we’ve had Lizzy’s swim meets and plenty of VBS work. But the big news this week—this month—this year is that Jeddy’s getting married.
People keep asking me if I’m massively busy with wedding preparations, so much so that I feel like maybe I should be. But here’s a pro tip for you parents out there: marry your sons off to a girl whose mom is a professional event planner.
Jason and I went suit shopping for him, and Ada finished remaking Caleb’s suit, since it didn’t come in a child size, so I had to get him the same size as the six-foot-tall groomsmen who outweigh him by a hundred pounds. But Ada pulled it all apart, cut a bunch off, and put it all back together, and Caleb looks pretty fantastic!
The girls and Jason and I went to the tailor for all our clothes to be altered, which I need to pick up. I’ll combine it with picking up all the groomsmen suits, which are at the dry cleaner’s getting pressed.
Ada has promised to do my hair for the wedding, so we spent some time last week practicing for that. And yesterday I took the girls to the mall for hair accessories and makeup and such.
And the cookies. So many cookies. I only volunteered to make a small fraction of what will be served for the cookie bar at the wedding reception, but I still never want to see a cookie again.
On Saturday night, Maddie’s family and ours got together to (theoretically) learn some line dances, but really it was enjoyable to just have fun together and celebrate a little more the upcoming union. The wedding ceremony, after all, will be, what, twenty minutes long? Thirty? And that one moment when the pastor says, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride” lasts about seven seconds.
Why do we have such high expectations of weddings? We wait for months and months and years and years for it to happen, and look back on it ever after, but the moment of matrimony is about as long as it takes to tie my shoes.
Because Jesus.
Well, also because when you get a bunch of moms and grandmothers together and all sides of both families for an event that is both personal and steeped in tradition, potential for conflict is, shall we say…elevated.
But also because Jesus.
Created for union with Him, we’re here slogging through the fallout of the fall; which is why the deepest part of our souls and indeed all of creation are waiting and longing for that moment when Jesus claims His bride, His people.
I’m a fan of the traditional white wedding because of how it points to the greater truth that human marriage is meant to signify. The bride, shining and beautiful, glorious and radiant in white, symbolizes the church triumphant, cleansed to perfect purity by Jesus’ blood. She floats down the aisle to meet her groom, just as the church will one day rise to meet her groom, who receives her with a pledge to love her forevermore.
Except Jeddy won’t vow to love Maddie forevermore, will he? He will vow to love her until death do they part. Because we are mortal in this life, we brides and grooms and friends and family. And the triumph of that moment when the pastor will introduce to the assembly “Mr. and Mrs. Jedidiah Miller” will pale to nothing when Christ comes and declares the church His own.
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