Matt and Melany's Wedding: Part 4

The Crystal Plaza in Livingston, NJ, 7:30 pm, Dec 31, 2011: Melany, her bridal party, her mom, aunt and grandmother and her soon-to-be in-laws (Jim and I) stood outside the doors to the room where her groom, his attendants, the Unitarian minister and Catholic priest officiants and more than 150 friends and family waited.

The chamber music group began the strains of “Piano Concerto No.2 Adagio Sostenuto” by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The event coordinator–Crystal Plaza staffer Nella –opened the doors, and Grandma Betty in a champagne-colored extravaganza and Aunt Jayme in a strapless copper-colored gown with a lavishly-beaded bodice floated in.

Jim and I were next down the aisle and I was so touched to see my “bios”—my half-siblings, children of my birth-mother—in the audience. The wedding was a bringing together of families in so many ways.

One by one Melany’s bridal party followed: Melany’s cousin Jay-Jay, Matt’s sister Maeve, Jen F. from Rochester, Tony R from Baltimore, maid of honor Jess Zelizo, matron of honor Celeste Zazzali.

Then the music shifted, like a current of air, to “Claire de Lune” by Claude DeBussy. The stunningly beautiful Melany walked down the aisle, arm in arm with her mother Susan in a glowing blue gown. (One of my sisters had said to Susan, “So you’re giving Melany away?” And Susan had replied, “I am NOT giving her away. I am walking her down the aisle, but I am NOT giving her away.”)

Melany and Susan kissed. Matt came down from the stage, kissed his mother-in-law and walked with Melany back onto the stage.

I tend to get "verklempt" (teary-eyed, choked-up) at weddings anyway, and here was my beloved son and Melany, about whom I have a mother's pride, although I had no role in her upbringing.

There were two co-celebrants of the wedding: Unitarian minister Reverend Charles Stephens, and Roman Catholic priest Father Jim White. Father White had been Matt’s priest at his high school, Bergen Catholic. The Unitarian connection brought memories of a moment when my husband Jim, father of the groom, had put his foot in his mouth.

We were driving down a highway in Wilmington, Delaware, a year ago, visiting our number two son Mike at his first-year law school, Widener. We passed a Unitarian church, and Jim said, “That’s a silly, frou-frou religion. What do they believe in?”

And, from the back of the car, Matt—sitting next to Melany-- said, “Well, that’s Melany’s religion, so you better watch what you say, Dad.”

“Yeah, Jim,” said Melany in a voice heavy with sarcasm. She had initially been wary of razzing Jim: When she came to her first family dinner with us at Easter, she was appalled at how Dad was the constant butt of jokes. But as she spent more time around our family, she got more comfortable with this central McQueeny ritual and began to understand why Jim was such an easy target.

In his wedding homily, the Unitarian minister, Reverend Stephens, talked about how getting married doesn’t mean you are fully married once you say your vows. You are “fractionally” married, he said. It could take 40 to 50 years to be fully married, he said.

I thought of the line from Khalil Gibran, “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” And I thought Jim and I were probably “more” married when the kids were little and the sheer terror of wrangling small human beings required close partnership, a daily synchronized swimming.

And I thought of friends and family on their second --or third -- marriages: Were the second marriages better than the first? And I thought of at least one young relative in a “dead” marriage, a shell marriage, and I thought of the sadness and the riskiness in that. (And, of course, the thought that maybe it could resurrect itself in the future.) I thought of another relative who says he stays with his spouse because he doesn’t want to have to split his pension.

I have friends who say they love being married. And I know of others – I just heard thrice-married actress Lorraine Bracco say this – who swear they would never again involve themselves in such a potential quagmire of an institution.

(I think it was someone from the Crystal Plaza who boasted to us that the place did such a fantastic job with weddings that people came back for their second and third weddings. He didn’t see the irony at all.)

I am impressed both by the earnestness and the capacity for risk of those speaking their marriage vows. And I know how happy my son has been since he and Melany got engaged.

There they stood, having worked so hard and done so much preparation to get to this point.

And I thought of the baby who was born a little early and a little small (5 pounds 12 ounces) and had jaundice his first week of life. The toddler who loved his stuffed animals Teddy-Eddy and Dewie Dog. (He once was singing the Springsteen song “Born in the USA” when he was supposed to be napping on his mat in preschool and when the teacher said, “Why are you singing? ” he replied:”I’m not singing. It’s Teddy-Eddy.”) The kid who was always getting into trouble early in elementary school –all the teachers knew him because he was almost always being punished for some infraction and had to spend his post-lunch playtime sitting with the teachers during their lunch. But he never seemed like trouble to us. The southpaw pitcher who gave his dad visions of a minor-league career and then gave up playing entirely. The adolescent who loved music, had me drive him to guitar lessons at Robbie’s Music, joined bands like the Mix-Ups, Beyond the Bridge, and Mission Failed (that one with his friend Andrew Firkins). He expected to become a rock star and tour with his band around the country. He and his younger brother Mike were “Straight-Edge”---a combination of love of punk rock, along with vegetarianism, no smoking, no drinking, and no wearing of animal products like leather. Matt didn’t even want to eat Jello because gelatin is made by boiling the hides and bones of cows and pigs.

I thought of the high school senior who had to endure his baby brother and sister with him on his college tours. The NYU student who came home every weekend. (He had me pick him up every Thursday from his apartment in Hoboken and we’d go out to dinner before I brought him back to Mahwah.) The young office worker who told me I could expect him to remain living at home until he was 28 or 30. We called him a “mammoni” after those young Italian men profiled on the show “60 Minutes” who might have their own condos but who came home every night for Mama’s cooking and clean laundry. The computer-savvy guy who could also write who went to work for the NJ Nets for a while. The guy whose sense of humor revealed itself in puns and who really enjoyed his grandmother in her dementia. “Mom,” he said to me at age 20, “ If we didn’t have Nanny and the dog, this family would have nothing to talk about.”

All in all, we enjoyed his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. We enjoyed his companionship and his part in the family dynamic. We enjoyed his intelligence and tolerated his puns And, if we were giving him away, it was with a sense of surprise that he was leaving at all, and that he had stepped away long enough to find such a remarkable partner.

And I know that Susan, on her side of the aisle, was thinking about Melany the baby, Melany the elementary-schooler, Melany the teen-ager, Melany the graduate student, Melany the teacher.

Susan and I came up to the stage to light the two tapers that represent our two families. Grandma Betty and Jim did their readings. And then Matt and Mel said their vows.

Matt’s voice was strong and even.

I, Matthew, take you, Melany, to be my wife, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together. I give you my hand, my heart, my friendship and my love, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live.

Melany had been dabbing her eyes with a tissue during the ceremony and passing the tissues to her matron of honor Celeste. There was a great deal of emotion in her voice as she spoke her vows.

I, Melany, take you, Matthew, to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together. I give you my hand, my heart, my friendship and my love, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live.

Father Jim White offered a blessing as Matthew and Melany exchanged rings.
The chamber group played the Irish Wedding Song. (Ironically, Jim’s first cousins from Ireland were unable to come to America for the wedding because one of their children –Tomas—was getting married that very New Year’s Eve.)

THE IRISH WEDDING SONG
(words and music by Ian Betteridge)
Here they stand, hand in hand, they've exchanged wedding bands
Today is the day of all their dreams and their plans
And all of their loved ones are here to say
God bless this couple who marry today
Chorus
In good times and bad times, in sickness and in health
May they know that riches are not needed for wealth
And help them face problems they'll meet on their way
Oh God bless this couple who marry today.
May they find peace of mind comes to all who are kind
May the rough times ahead become triumphs in time
May their children be happy each day
Oh God bless this family who started today
Chorus
As they go, may they know every love that was shown
And as life it gets shorter, may their feelings grow
Wherever they travel, wherever they stay
May God bless this couple who marry today

Matt and Melany then lit the Unity Candle that Susan had so graciously gotten for them, using the two tapers we had lit previously.

Reverend Stephens pronounced them married. Matthew fist-pumped the air while he and Melany kissed.

And they recessed down the aisle to the Black-Eyed Peas song, “I Gotta Feeling.”

I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good, good night