And then there are the young girls who are trying to please their mom--who wants the wedding so she can invite all her friends.  The vows are between two people, but weddings have become a huge group activity that sometimes involves the entire town.  And sometimes a young girl is overwhelmed with pressure, trying to please everyone but herself.

Not that there is anything wrong with saying vows in front of your family and friends.  It's just that trying to "do it right" has become the object of the ceremony--rather than the marriage itself.

If you want to remember what is important about that moment, you need just the two of you.  All the rest of the stuff going on should never be the point.  With that said, get married.  Two of you.  Go to the preacher or go to the judge.  Invite others if you want.  Have flowers, music, etc. if you want.  Or none of it if you don't want.  Then go live your lives.  It will not be a fairy tale.  It will be real life between two people.  The entire event will be important to two people in the end.  And forgotten by almost everyone else.   It is a moment of beginning for two people.

I only remember bits and pieces of my own wedding.  I planned it.  (My mother didn't make a single suggestion.)  The most important thing was that Ken was there.  I was there.  We promised to love each other until death.  And for 57 years, we did.  Until death did us part.  I would do it all over again.  In a heartbeat.  I should have said "Yes" the first time he asked me.  Or the fifth or sixth.

It used to involve jumping over a broom.   Or like in the movie, "Cold Mountain," saying, "I marry you" three times.  Or like in the 1700's and 1800's, in an emerging nation, announcing you were marrying each other, planting your crops to prepare for winter, and waiting on a circuit judge or a traveling preacher--who had no license--to make it official.  You didn't need the state to be involved at all.  Then came Social Security, licensing, state control and involvement in something that was invented by God.  Marriage.  God's plan in the first place.  Please God, and the rest will be right.

When, "...the two are united into one.  Since they are no longer two...they are one."  Mark 10:8