The Changing Face of Weddings
Kyle K. Schiefelbein-Guerrero
This issue of Liturgy dealing with “Weddings,” guest-edited by Ruth Meyers, explores the changing face of marriage, reconsiderations about the agency of the couple, and the church’s responses to new understandings of scripture regarding relationships.
What follows is an excerpt from Kyle K. Schiefelbein-Guerrero’s essay on changes in the marriage practices over several generations. He begins with a look at what his own family has experienced. –– Melinda Quivik
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The humorous Lutheran Handbook on Marriage provides a drawing of the “anatomy of a typical Lutheran wedding.” The drawing shows the bride and groom standing before the pastor near the altar, three bridesmaids and three groomsmen, two ushers, a pianist and soloist, flower arrangements, family seated in the pews, and the unity candle and candelabra. However, this image does not show anything particularly “Lutheran,” as it looks like most ceremonies, both real and fictitious.
On an autumn Saturday in 1942, my grandparents were married in the parsonage of my hometown church in west-central Minnesota. The congregation was a member of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America (later Evangelical Lutheran Church). From congregational records, it appears to have been common practice for weddings to happen at the parsonage. The wedding party consisted of the bride and groom, a bridesmaid and groomsman, and a flower girl and ring bearer. The bride was given away by her father, and piano music accompanied the event.
Almost forty years later, on a Saturday in spring, my parents were married at the same congregation (then a member of the American Lutheran Church), this time in the church building. The wedding party consisted of three bridesmaids, three groomsmen, a flower girl, and a ring bearer. The father gave away the bride, and soloists and instrumental music accompanied the service.
On a mild summer day in the mid-2000s, at a winery in west-central Minnesota, my sister and brother-in-law were married. The pastor from the congregation in the two previous scenes (now part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) presided, and the wedding party consisted of six bridesmaids and six groomsmen, two ring bearers, two flower girls, and two personal attendants. The father gave away the bride, and a soloist and pianist provided music.
In 2017 I was married over a ten-month period, beginning with a civil ceremony at San Francisco City Hall and culminating with a blessing of marriage during the Sunday morning liturgy at our congregation in San Francisco. Friends and family joined us at City Hall, and they and the entire congregation (a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) prayed with and for us during the Eucharistic liturgy, which included two primary sponsors, six secondary sponsors, and two ring bearers. The church choir, organist, and a small orchestra played and sang a Bach cantata and accompanied congregational singing.
I claim that the four that I just described, which I analyze below, are all Lutheran in some sense. Since it would be impossible to do justice to surveying the diversity of approaches over Lutheranism’s half-millennium and global existence, this article focuses on the American context with the most recent rites from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) and the Lutheran Service Book (LSB), both published in 2006. It would do well for us to first look at Luther's own rite in the Small Catechism because it can serve as a source for understanding Lutheran marriage rites in our own day.
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The full essay in Liturgy 34, no. 3 is available online by personal subscription and through many libraries.
Kyle K. Schiefelbein-Guerrero, “Lutheran Marriage Rites: Ritual Approaches to Truth-Telling, God-Blessing, and Community-Praying,” Liturgy 34, no. 3 (2019): 21-30.