The central event of the wedding ceremony is the wedding ceremony.
Oct 3, 2004

The Editor
Real Weddings Magazine

Dear Editor

In the first place, I would like to congratulate you on an original magazine, featuring real brides and grooms and not models.

But may I take the liberty of pointing out to you that your magazine is not totally real. The central event of the wedding is the wedding. The central event of the wedding ceremony is the wedding ceremony. All the other aspects you describe in your magazine are about the surrounds, the peripherals, of the wedding.

The bridal gown is what the bride wears to the wedding ceremony. The bridesmaids’ outfits are what the bridesmaids wear to the wedding ceremony. The limousines are what the participants use to travel to the wedding ceremony. The photography and the videotaping is the record of the wedding ceremony. The Reception centre is the place where takes place the wedding ceremony. The feast provided is to celebrate the wedding ceremony. The honeymoon venue is where the couple go to consummate the wedding ceremony.

But nowhere, nowhere, do you mention the wedding ceremony. It is as if you were publishing a magazine about food and you talk about knives and forks , dinner tables, the finest crockery, tablecloths, stoves and microwaves, and super dishwashers — but food is mentioned nowhere.

Surely by now someone in your outfit has realised that there are a core group of celebrants, who, with aware couples, treat the ceremony as the central event. Their preoccupation is with poetry, personal story, music and songs, symbolism, choreography and movement and personal creation. Surely by now someone in your outfit has realised that celebrants now assist couples, at over 55% of weddings in Australia, with ceremonies of power and force, which bond the couple, their families, and their network of friends in a Rite of Passage which has lasting and good psychological effects. Such ceremonies substantially aid the stability of the relationship. Surely by now someone in your outfit has realised that the important central event, within the central event, is when the man and the woman say words which totally commit each to the other in the sincerest loving heartfelt moment perhaps of their entire lives.

I know that some celebrants and clergy have little notion of what they are doing, and simply “do” a brief ceremony but others officiate at ceremonies of depth and beauty. Since 1995 some celebrants have been trained in what these occasions really mean, and how western culture desperately needs cultural celebrations, which draw down deep meaning into people’s lives.

Celebrants are notoriously underpaid and undervalued. (Do they earn enough to advertise in your magazine? - No!) This is their/our own fault, I admit. But I cannot bring myself to believe that a magazine like yours is so mercenary that you only highlight those who can pay you money. Please assure me that I have got it right.

Dally Messenger III, STB, LCP (Lond), BEd, DipLib, ALAA, GradDipCel, CertIVA&WT
Principal