First of all, please understand that I have nothing against children. However, adults sometimes over-estimate their capacity to understand the significance of a wedding ceremony. Children don’t automatically know what appropriate behaviour is for that situation. Why do couples think it’s really important to have young children – children who are not their own – present at the ceremony?
THE STORY: The Only Time I Have Ever Stopped A Ceremony
The wedding start time is 3 pm. The venue is an inside event space in a hotel. It’s a warm and humid day, with a serious chance of rain. The room is hot and there is no ventilation. People are squirming in their seats. The bar at the back of the space is now out of ice.
The music starts up and the procession begins. The first marrier identifies as the groom. He enters with his mom, takes her to her seat and comes to stand with me at the precariously tilting arch with blinking fairy lights. Each of the seven groom’s attendants come in, shake his hand or hug him, and take their places amidst the tangle of electrical cords all over the floor. The music changes to a new song and the seven attendants of the second marrier, who identifies as the bride, process forward and take their places. Some of the attendants are sturdy on their high heels, others are a bit wobbly. The music changes once more and the assembly is asked to stand for the bride’s entrance. Two “flower girls” walk first, in their lacy, frilly dresses and patent white party shoes, waving Princess Wands with long streamers. They are the 4- and 2-year old nieces of the bride; their dad is one of the groomsmen and their mom is the Matron of Honour. The little girls stand with the bride’s party. The bride enters with her father and takes her place at the arch. The space around the arch is pretty crowded now with 18 of them and me.
The ceremony begins with the usual welcome, nice words about the couple, and the significance of the day – and there’s a little flurry of something to my right as the youngest flower girl, the two-year-old, throws her wand on the ground. The Mother of the Bride, the girl’s grandmother, hushes the child, and picks up the wand. The child protests with some volume and snatches it back. There is urgent whispering I follow my script and keep on talking. The bride loses her focus on her husband-to-be and turns around to look at her niece, adding to the shushing. The child flings herself on the floor and flails around, hitting out at anyone who comes near here, screaming that she wants her mommy; no, she wants her daddy; no, not Nana; no. NO!
The older sister-flower-girl hides her face in her mother’s bridesmaid dress. I see the mother is looking steadfastly forward.
I stop the ceremony, apologize to the guests, suggest that it is unfair to continue with a child in such distress and might someone please ensure that she is taken care of. (In my mind I’m shouting, will someone tell the kid to shut the f*ck up!) We stop for about five minutes while some shifting around and earnest directives are issued. I’m not taking her. I’m not taking her. You take her.The result is that the parents of the child return to their spaces in the wedding party, and the grandmother of the child, the bride’s mother, takes the little girl out to the balcony of the space and slides the door closed behind them.
The ceremony is resumed. the vows are spoken and the best man is presenting the rings for the ring exchange when there is a shriek and loud wailing from the child. Her flower girl wand-with-streamers lands on the ground, six floors down. The balcony door slides open, the volume of the wailing reaches a crescendo, The child is being pulled through the ceremony space by the grandmother, out into the hotel hallway. Once again I pause, and as the bawling and whining fade in volume, the ceremony resumes, and the couple is ultimately pronounced married.
At the signing table, the bride says to me that maybe she shouldn’t have had the ceremony at her niece’s nap time.
I think, seriously?
Sometimes I wonder how Nana feels about having missed most of her daughter’s wedding ceremony.
