Thou Shalt Marry On The 16th July 2011
Apologies for the delay; I have been away in Russia dealing with the heatwave (you don’t know what 40 degrees is until you discover new sweat glands in places you didn’t even know it was possible to have sweat glands) and forest fires (although I do look rather fetching in a smog mask).
First things first; we have told the matriarch of the family a.k.a. my Russian grandmother about the wedding. I was expecting hysterics and shouts of, “You’re too young!” but she just cried a lot (with happiness) and congratulated me, which was nice. In retrospect, I should have remembered that in Russia, a woman who is over twenty-five and not in a serious relationship is looked at as almost past-it. A depressing thought but it worked in my favour.
Secondly, the Sunday we got back we went to talk to the church warden about setting a date. We got told to turn up at 10.30, which we did and found the service in full progress. There were people singing and everything. We thought we would hang around the foyer reading the notices until a woman came out and spoke to us, then proceeded to invite us in to see the end of the service. Which lasted another hour and a half.
Don’t get me wrong, the people there were really friendly and really great but I am really not a religious person. I’m one of many people who believe in a higher power, whether it’s called God, Sod’s law or karma, but organised religion is not my cup of myrrh. I find it a little overbearing and the idea of having to be in a certain place at a certain time to show my love for the Maker seems a little odd to me considering he is supposed to be omnipresent and omniscient. Every house is God’s house, right? But anyway, at the fear of starting a religious debate, I will just say that the reason we are getting married in a church (as you were probably wondering by now) is because Mr Alena has a connection with it; many of his school activities were held there and his family has got married there for generations. Which I think is as good a reason as any.
After the service, the church wardens came and chatted to us, the date and time we wanted were free and then I mentioned the Problem. The Problem is as follows: Mr Alena is not baptised and I am not CofE. When I mentioned it before to someone, they suggested we lie but despite not being overly religious, it still doesn’t feel right to lie in a church.
The wardens were unsure, so they called over a man in black clothes and a white collar (I actually Googled all over the place to find out whether there was a special name for it so I wouldn’t offend anyone but apparently not, so collar it is) came over. It turned out he was the new… under-bishop? Diocesan bishop? I’m a bit crap with the structure, but Wikipedia tells me he is a Diocesan bishop (I think) so there he was, and he explained to us that as long as one person was baptised then it was fine to marry in the church and Russian Orthodox churches actually did things properly apparently. Although he did say it was their job to encourage Mr Alena to be baptised, he would not want to do so if Mr Alena did not feel it was the right thing for him. He also suggested we might like to attend some Church workshops about marriage. And also said that as the current vicar was leaving, he would make sure we wouldn’t worry by doing the ceremony himself.
So there you go! We have the date we want, the time we want and the honour of an important man marrying us. At the end of the week we are off to the church with the deposit and that will be the first OFFICIAL step (prior to that it was just planning) towards our wedding! Hurrah!
P.S. I have also just typed the word “church” many, many times and now it looks really odd to me. Does anyone else get that?
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I type the word Staggered on such a regular basis that it often feels like I’m going to misspell it. Never have so far. TRUE STORY.
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