Many of you by now have seen that viral wedding video on YouTube where the wedding party and the bride and groom came down the aisle doing hip hop dancing. I read the comments and found post after post congratulating the couple on such a choice.
I have my own taste in wedding ceremonies and dancing hip hop down the aisle is not high on my list of good options. Receptions are for letting it all hang out.
But more importantly, what was there in this video which pulled so much positive response? What does this say about the very traditional church ceremonies? Yes, this bride and groom were iconoclasts, but what ritual did they want to shatter? Shock and awe may be one explanation, or it may have been even simpler: wedding ceremonies don't have to be somber and boring. After all, wedding ceremonies are about celebrating love and joy, solemnizing commitment, but not about assuming a dreaded ball and chain.
From my vantage point having conducted many ceremonies with people of all faiths, including agnostics and atheists inter-marrying practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and more, it seems everyone wants something intimate, human, touching, but not saccharine, or preachy. When it's human, sensitive and intimate, the fun can come from the couple themselves, what poetry they choose, what vows are personal and meaningful to them. Genuine laughter in a wedding ceremony is a recognizable quality of reality and brings all of us in to the human story. We do not have to shock and awe to shake up tradition. It was an experiment that may have said more about who responded than about this particular couple.
There's a hunger out there for a personal spirituality, for having the God of our understanding as a loving and gracious entity.
