My mother-in-law insisted we use her church’s pastor to marry us. My wife had grown up going to his church, but neither of us is particularly religious so I really just wanted to go with someone who was legal and would be comfortable with the whole thing. I actually wanted a sea captain, but that’s another story.
It was important to my wife’s mom so we went with the pastor. We met with him twice to go over what we wanted to include and how things would go. Both time we seemed to be in agreement that something quick and friendly, with lots of love talk but not so much god talk would be best. He gave me an outline he said he’d work from and seemed like a nice guy, so I didn’t really worry about it.
The big day comes and the first words out his mouth are “You’re marrying the wrong person” after which he proceeded to explain to us and our friends and family that we weren’t marrying each other, we were marrying god. And how life wasn’t about having a good time or feeling good, it was about living in service to the community, your family, and of course, god. The last part grated because my outlook is pretty much the exact opposite.
He basically ambushed us and we stared at each other trying to act cool while I planned the most polite way to shut him down and restart. At some point I looked at him, shot lightning with my eyeballs and he moved things along quickly to the vows.
We can laugh about it now, but at the time it seemed like a pretty big deal. I have no idea if he just mixed us up with some other couple, or if he fully intended to ambush us the entire time and just told us what we wanted to hear. I didn’t say anything to him after that, I didn’t see a way the conversation could have gone well.
For what it’s worth, my new mother-in-law thought it was beautiful.