A late bride and an upset mother-in-law

Long chat to Ann and Paul on Skype. Louise was here and finalised the wedding booklet. One of the Rutter anthems has changed back from "The Lord bless you and keep you" to "For the beauty of the earth". She also helped Liz with her CV and covering letter. To Coulsdon for the wedding. We had a good choir and I was grateful to Christian Strouver coming to sing tenor, although having such a fine organist in the choir made me a little nervous which is unusual for me.
However this bride has given me too much grief! Never allow a bride to come to a choir practice! On the day I find that not only has "O happy day" been pulled but that there is no Celtic Alleluia and no Gospel! "The owl and the pussycat" is hardly material for a wedding sermon. Frankly it's naff to use it as a reading at a church wedding. Good to see the former vicar Martin Goodlad again and quite a few of the parish worthies were there. We sang a choral version of Schubert's "Ave Maria" (thank you to the internet for finding this and being able to download it for a fee) and Franck's Panis angelicus. The congregation applauded these suggesting that they saw the whole thing as a performance rather than a service.
The opening hymn had some rather good words by David Mowbray set to "Repton" in the Celebration Hymnal "May Christ the Lord of Cana's feast".
My main moan was that the bride was 30 minutes late! I played for 25 minutes but then I stopped and just waited. Some problem with car drivers and buttonholes I gather but I do think this was very rude and showed no concern for other people.
The knock on effect was that Liz had to go straight up to Victoria to meet AnnMarie and I took Louise to Fiona's for Ryan's first birthday party. I went to the hospital alone and Grandma was most upset that Liz had not come as she was having a catheter washout which is not a pleasant procedure but a necessary one.
I rang Louise and she went to the hospital and stayed until Liz and AnnMarie got there around 8 p.m. At Mass Fr Tim preached about the Alton Towers visit and fear as the gospel was about Jesus bringing division "mother-in-law against daughter-in-law".
I listened to the superb Prom of Elgar's "The Apostles".

Comments

Edward said…
I'm afraid I consider weddings a cross to bear. And the late starts--egad. I haven't had a wedding start less than 20 minutes late in years. One recent one was 50 minutes late. Why? We were waiting for the mother of the bride! Some couples actually put e.g. 4:00 on the invitation knowing that they really mean to start at 4:30... Oh well, once I start it's hard to stop!
Fr Dennis always said 5 minutes late one hymn goes, 10 minutes late 2nd hymn goes, 15 minutes late I go and no wedding! What has happened to courtesy? What to do if you have started playing voluntaries? Practise for the next couple of Sundays? I didn't think Mendelssohn's War march of the priests very suitable before a marriage - it's a great piece and I played it on Sunday after the service. I also played a John Stanley voluntary - always a treat!
Anonymous said…
'The Owl and the Pussycat'. I think that I have heard it all. The couples may not know any better but the clergy do and have a duty to stop the creep of secularisation into weddings. It happens at funerals too. Its not just that 'My Way' is played. Its the recent trend for funerals to become memorial events with speeches from friends and families. Again, its for the clergy to put a stop to this.

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