Death While Planning a Wedding

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Photo by Nevit Dilmen, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I have to admit, I had another topic picked for this week, something funny and light in tone.  But then we got the call last week that Liz’s grandfather had passed away.  It was both expected and unexpected — he’d been in poor health for years and had recently taken a turn for the worse, but we thought it might just be a matter of adjusting his medications.  Having lived through both an expected and an unexpected death, I can honestly say that it doesn’t much matter: either way it hurts like hell.  To make matters worse, it was only a few days before Liz’s birthday.

So what’s a concerned and loving fiancee to do?  I am a problem-solver by nature, so I set out to “fix” this as best I could on the very next day.  You’d think I’d have learned in my 39 years not to try to fix certain things, but you’d be wrong. At least my heart was in the right place.  Though I do so hope you don’t have to solve this problem yourself, I quickly discovered there are many ways to include those loved ones who have departed in your wedding.

I contacted our officiant the next morning and asked her about the possibility of inserting our dearly departed into the wedding, perhaps in the unity candle ceremony.  I wondered if there was a way to do it without losing the joyfulness of the occasion.  Reverend Linda wrote back to say, “This is an often used ritual to honor precious people who have passed away. It won’t be maudlin, it will be beautiful.”

My initial idea was to have a candle for each of our parents and grandparents who can’t be with us on our day.  Liz and I could light our individual candles, use them to light the candles for each of our deceased, and then come together to light the unity candle.  However, if we do it this way my side will be a bit of a bonfire with 6 deceased grandparents plus a candle for my mother, so perhaps just a single candle for each of us to represent our family’s dead.

I was excited by the idea and felt bolstered by our officiant’s reaction.  I could even picture our candles: mine in sage green, Liz’s cornflower blue and the family candles in warm chocolate brown, unity candle in white, maybe with some sort of bird or tree design (the first three are our wedding colors and “love birds” is our theme).  But I blurted all of this information out that night as we were getting ready for bed — a little less than 30 hours after she’d gotten the bad news.  She looked at me, dumbfounded, and finally stammered that she’d like some more time to think about it.  What was I thinking???  Talk about bad timing.  But I’m happy to report that we’ve since talked about it, and Liz is on board with the idea.

We’re also thinking of displaying a bunch of family photos of both the living and deceased on a long table.  We’d love to rent a photo booth so our guests can take their own pictures that day to add to our collection.  Or maybe we’ll work something similar out with our photographer and a good, old-fashioned Polaroid camera.

My engagement ring was my mother’s so a part of her is already with me every day.  I also plan to carry a small picture of her in my breast pocket at the wedding.  Liz is looking at wedding dresses that echo her grandmother’s dress and we have a stunning picture of it that will likely be on display with our other family photos.

I think a wedding sums up a lot about you and your people — what your traditions are and what your values are.  For us, we couldn’t let the day pass without acknowledging these people who shaped those traditions and values, who taught us about loving and being loved.