You May Call Me Reverend

I have been ordained in the Universal Life Church!
Ok, the story of this is kind of funny.

There is a couple whom I met through my work at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, but my father has known for longer than my lifetime. These two have been 'planning' their wedding for almost as long as I've known them. At least once a year, they get asked when the wedding will be. For the longest time, the only thing any of us knew was that it will be Renaissance-themed.

Our clique from RenFest meets the first Sunday of every month in the off-season for brunch in Annapolis. It was the December or January meet when they finally said "Mark your calendars for May 20th!" Needless to say, we wasted no time marking that date.

The bride joined us for brunch this past Sunday, and got to catch us all up on the progress of the wedding. She described it as wedding planning from hell. Now, I don't believe in hell, but if there was a hell, it would be the last few months that this poor woman had to go through.
To start, she's been in and out of the hospital for extremely high blood pressure. She was going to get her dress from an acquaintance, who had a family emergency and had to leave town. She and her fiance were ordered to go to couples counseling classes by the vicar who will be officiating the wedding. The classes were a trial in themselves, no one knew where they were to be held (including the vicar), the instructors turned off their cell phones for the class, so they couldn't call. To make a long story short, they spent all day looking for it and ended up not finding it (we think the vicar is letting that part go, however). The worst part came up last week. The vicar told the bride she needed to produce her divorce papers or she would not perform the ceremony. This is bad because the bride's divorce happened over 20 years ago, she has no idea where they are. She was advised to contact the county for a copy of the document, and (after a long search to find out which county she was in at the time) she did so. The county clerk said, "no problem, the fee is this, and it will take 4 to 6 months." Never mind that the wedding is in three weeks! They explained this to the vicar who remained adamant, she will not perform the ceremony without seeing those papers. Basically, the bride is proceeding as planned and none of us are sure that this 10 year in the making wedding will actually take place.

So I came up with a solution! I, and a friend who wanted to offer his support, will get ordained so if the vicar refuses to officiate on the 20th, he and I can do it. We've been waiting for this wedding for 10 years, if this is what I have to do to see it done, so be it!

It's slightly ironic, since I don't know the first thing about officiating a wedding (outside of EverQuest, but that's something else altogether!), and I'm not particularly fond of weddings in general. Oh, the sacrifices I'll make to see that two people who belong together stay that way!