Saturday, August 18, 2007

Weddings Up the Wazoo

Maybe I should start a wedding business and name it this. This summer I have performed many more weddings than I normally do in a summer. I like doing weddings and I appreciate the extra cash they bring in, since I've diminished my income seriously by letting go of my Vashon commitments. My fee is normally $300, which includes two planning and conversation meetings, a rehearsal, and the actual ceremony and other events of the day. I don't do much premarital counseling, since that's not my forte, but I do ask enough questions that I get a sense of how the couple sorts out its difficulties, approaches their relationship, and their understandings of marriage.

But I may say no to future weddings that are off-island. When I have to travel over 30 miles, take ferries hither and yon, and even stay overnight, it becomes too much of a hassle. (Not that I would have passed up the opportunity to marry the son and fiancee of old friends who live on the Oregon Coast and paid for all my expenses to travel to the wedding site!) Some weddings require so much preparation that I ought to charge more than $300, of course, particularly when certain requirements of the couple have to be met----a lengthy homily, lots of elements that depart seriously from my accustomed way of doing things, etc.

But the rewards generally outweigh the frustrations, and I thoroughly enjoy meeting each couple, getting to know them and their families. Today I am peforming two weddings----one a repeat of the ceremony performed privately two weeks ago for the bride in chemo and her bekilted groom and the second a gala affair with a couple at Greenbank Farm, just north of here. One is at noon, the other at 5 p.m.

On top of these obligations, I'm preaching tomorrow, but that sermon is in the bag now and will appear here later. My friend is arriving on Monday for a few days and I am going to enjoy some moments of true leisure with her, despite the fact that I have a board retreat one day when she will have to be on her own, plus a couple of other meetings. But it's the longest stretch of more or less free time we could scrape together this month! Of course, I have to clean the bathroom and dust/vacuum before she gets here, but that's no problem. I'm pretty tidy, so the house stays pretty clean.

Anyhow, don't you think Weddings Up the Wazoo is a nice name for a wedding biz? I still have four more to do before the season is over!

11 comments:

LinguistFriend said...

Well, you know that CC used to make
her living by arranging parties etc. for congressmen, skills that worked well for her own wedding. Perhaps there is room for collaboration or
at least a consulting relationship there. On the other hand, EVERYone
associated in a central role with a wedding usually feels that they
have had weddings up the something or other by the time it is over, so your proposed title of the businesss would be very apt.
LinguistFriend

Lilylou said...

LF, you are too much! I love it. CC, how about a collaborative/consulting role at WUW!?

LaReinaCobre said...

My friend Joseph, who is recently out of seminary, has been performing a lot of weddings, too, this summer. I wonder if there's been an increase in weddings overall, or just one of those things ....

Oh, and Weddings up the Wazzoo sounds like you are too tired to do any more weddings - or that there might be a clown involved! LOL

Lilylou said...

Hey, I like the clown idea, Hafidha! Thanks for the suggestion-------would you like to be a consultant too, along with CC?

Miss Kitty said...

Best! business! name! EVER!!!

Lilylou said...

Well, now you know where to come get married if you ever decide to do it again, Miss K.

Robin Edgar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Robin Edgar said...

Come to think of it. . . Weddings Up the Wazoo is a very appropriate name for a wedding biz run by a WASU or indeed a WASU*U.

Joel Monka said...

You could use a kazoo with "W"s painted on it as a logo and "attention" sounder, and call it your "Wazoo" if anybody asks!

Robin Edgar said...

Maybe the Ws could be actual double Us as in Mary Bennett's all-inclusive U*U. . . ;-)

Chalicechick said...

Ms. Kitty-

I like the idea of a crisis wedding business. Is it the week before the wedding, you forgot to order the cake? We will find you one. Is your minister sick and the wedding tomorrow? We've got one! Etc, etc..

I bet there's crazy money in that, even if it's very hard to take a vacation.

CC
who, despite her event planning experience, did order her wedding cake the week before the wedding.

It was still the coolest wedding cake I've ever seen...