Planning the Wedding Weekend

So his parents and my mom had given their blessings. All had agreed that they wanted us to have a “public” ceremony. My mom, of course, had a dream of her daughter wearing a white dress and getting married in a church. I obviously didn’t marry in the church, which was never much of an issue. She is a very spiritual person and attends church every Sunday, but she accepted early on that when I married my DH, that things would change. We also wanted the traditional nikkah as well.

So my hubby and I had a lot of planning to do! The wedding weekend as we call it was to take place in early spring and this was now early fall. I had six months to plan the whole ordeal because that was when his parents were able to return. And, frankly there was no reason to slow the process down with us already being married.

So we decided on the nikkah on Friday afternoon with a dinner following and the “white dress” wedding on Saturday evening with a reception following.

My hubby spoke to the Imam about the nikkah, and then we went in search to find someone to officiate the Saturday ceremony. First we went to an old Jewish woman and she was a bit too costly and surprisingly, she kept steering us in the Christian direction. Then we went to an older man who is a former priest. Of course hubby was a bit skeptical about this whole part, but went along with it because it was what my Mom so dearly wanted. Compromise.

We walked in the room to meet this ex-priest dude and we are instantly greeted with a six foot wide banner that reads “Assalamu `alayku la ilaha illa Allah”. Another banner read “Peace Be with You” and then one that read “Shalom”. We sat down and had a lengthy conversation with this man. He and his wife were teachers at a Catholic school, she a nun and he a priest. They fell in love and married. The received so much ill-will for their decision that they really began to question Catholicism. From that point on they have spent their time studying world religions from a historic standpoint.

They marvel at how many similarities there are and how many inaccurate facts have been passed down as truth in Christianity. The man still considers himself a Christian, but believes that the Prophet is the last to be sent by God and that Jesus and the Prophet will unite. He studies Aramaic and teaches this and the story of how all three religions interrelate. He and his wife were fascinating! We spent hours learning from one another.