A Beautiful Day. A Beautiful Beginning.

We love weddings here in America. We really do. And why not? Weddings are awesome! Your friends and family are happy, everyone loves each other for a day, the food is good, there's dancing, and you get a big fat slice of gourmet cake. There is almost no downside! The Church loves weddings too. Two people coming together freely for the sole purpose of giving of themselves as a gift to the other. The wedding marks the beginning a new chapter in the life of the bride and groom, but also in the life of all their family and friends who have assembled to celebrate this occasion with them.

This wedding fever expands far beyond the ceremony itself. We have shows like The Bachelor, Say Yes to the Dress, Bridezillas, Amazing Wedding Cakes, and all other manner of shows that track every aspect of the wedding from the couple's first meeting to the alter and reception. Wedding episodes of other shows end up being the highest rated episodes of the series. Even the stories we tell our kids end up with a couple getting married and living "happily ever after". If you still don't believe me, just look at the cost of every aspect of the wedding, from the dress, to the cake, to the hall, to the music, and the prices that people are willing to pay to put on the perfect ceremony and reception.

There is not doubt that we are obsessed. We are trained to dream of "that special day" from the time that we notice the opposite sex. But at the same time, the divorce rate still hovers around 51% percent in the United States. How can this be? How can a culture that is so in love with weddings be so volatile for marriages? On the flip side, why put so much money and so much dreaming into a wedding that only has a 1 in 2 chance of working out.

The answer is simple: In a culture where 51% of marriages fail, we insist on the perfect wedding in order to ensure that we can at least hold on to one perfect memory.

We're talking about a culture of fear. Marriages are not emphasized or glorified. They are not though of as sacred or holy. The gift of self is thought of as more of a business exchange than a self-giving. We even have pre-nuptial agreements, legal contracts, predicated on the assumption that marriages will end. Is it any shock then that we look forward to weddings instead of marriages? If you are truly afraid of being hurt, why wouldn't you put as much effort as possible into making sure that the one day you control turns out perfectly? The fear of divorce and the cultural wedding obsession have become a self-fulfilling prophecy in which weddings grow and become more extravagant while more and more marriages suffer and die.

Now, I do not think bad thing to love weddings. It is an awesome thing to look forward to taking those vows and celebrating that unity. A couple should look forward to their wedding day in the same way that a seminarian looks forward to his holy orders and a novice sister looks forward to the day she takes her final vows. I am simply saying that we need a shift. 

Stop thinking of a wedding of an end instead of a beginning. A man and a woman are entering into one life and one love together. Use the wedding as a way to look forward. Dream about your future spouse and the life that you can build together. Truly think and pray about the lengths you will go to love your spouse and give of yourself to ensure their happiness and their good. Marriages are supposed to be so strong that only death can part the two. We need to enter marriages with the mindset that we will stay together forever, and we will work to ensure that we do not fail.

 We limit ourselves when we simply get caught up in wedding fever and dream only of the wedding day. The wedding is the start of a sacramental life shared by two people. That is something that is far more exciting than the day it all begins.

St. Joseph, model of mahood, pray for us

Father in heaven, bless us.