My First Wedding

I've officiated at a funeral before, but I had never done a wedding until March 30th of this year. My good friend Tabitha asked if I would marry her and her fiancee Matthew, and I was honored to be asked.

They decided on a small ceremony in their backyard. There were several toddlers who were going to be at the wedding, and in the backyard they could run around, play with toys, and the parents did not have to keep quite so close a watch on the kids.

Matt and Tabitha have a daughter who was just over a year old, and right before the wedding she decided she was hungry. Some family members stripped her out of her dress and started feeding her yogurt. Matt was calling people out to the backyard so we could start the wedding when he spotted his naked daughter in her high chair. He stopped, a small smile spread across his face, and he said, "five minutes!"

It was a simple ceremony. Matt and Tabitha shared how much they loved each other. At one point, their daughter Kiera yelled out "NO NO NO!," which had to do with the fact that she wasn't the center of attention as opposed to a protest about her parent's nuptials, but it was really cute and timely all the same.

The day went well, and I got through my first wedding without a hitch. Well, there was one hitch... I kind of...sort of...well...at the end of the ceremony...I introduced them with the wrong name. I declared they were married, and then introduced them with their new legal names. However, rather than introducing them "Matthew and Tabitha Thurston," I introduced them both with the bride's maiden name, "Matthew and Tabitha MacDonald."

Luckily, they thought it was HILARIOUS. People kept coming up to me and asking if I'd planned it that way, or if the bride had paid me to do it. Sometimes, it's the mess-ups and the unexpected that makes a moment special and memorable.

In any case, it was a beautiful day.