Wedding Preparation

It's been a lovely evening, with young Agnes - the lady who phoned me up last week - and Robert, her fiancé.

They're not chapel-goers, but they told me that Agnes' mother is very keen they not be married at St Swithin's. Not least because the vicar is a woman. Agnes' mother thinks that women ministers are wrong - I felt myself to be warming to the lady, absent as she was.  But then Agnes said,
"In fact, she thinks even a Baptist is better than a woman vicar."
I collected myself, However you look at it, this wedding is the chance, next summer, for a great witness to the families of these two young people.

I'll be honest, this will be my first wedding - or at least the first I've conducted, I've been to loads.  So I really wanted to make the preparation thorough. I covered off the Scriptural basis - Adam and Eve, Jesus' commandments on divorce - and then I went on to the details of the promises and the ceremony itself.

It was when I moved on - tentatively, and sensitively - to the matter of the wedding night, and the activities associated with it.  I obviously wasn't going to draw any diagrams, or any detailed description of the - for want of a better word - obligations  of the marriage bed. But I felt it was my Christian duty to set the scene, so to speak.
So imagine my surprise when they made it quite clear that they were fully familiar with all the activities of the bridal suite, before the event.
I wasn't sure what to do. That the young couple before me were heinous sinners was quite clear. And yet I am the one able to set them on the path to redemption. But inspiration fell upon me, as the dews upon Hermon.

The young couple agreed that a period of repentance and abstinence was necessary, before next year's nuptials. Moving back in with their parents is apparently out of the question, in the interim - who would have thought that both their families have had to seal off their rooms due to anthrax infestation?  But they have agreed that they shall inhabit separate bedrooms until they are united, legally and in the eyes of God. I don't like the compromise, fearing that temptation will be in their way, but if they can overcome that temptation they will be equal to the strength of many.

Before they left I offered to pray for Robert's healing from what seems to be a nasty affliction. He developed, later in our conversation, a tendency to wink repeatedly and apparently in the direction of his betrothed. I suspect it may have been merely the nervousness and guilt associated with the disclosure of their situation, and he assures me that he's sure it will clear up once he's sufficiently forgiven.