celebrating weddings on the Bruderhof

Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers –

It’s been a little while since we posted, and that’s because we wanted our next post to be about weddings, and Norann couldn’t write about her son’s wedding until it happened in mid-January, and then she traveled from Australia to New York (and spent time with Marianne).

We’re planning to follow up this post about how weddings are celebrated on the Bruderhof with another one about marriage in our church, so please send in your questions!

Norann - in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia

Since I shared the news of our son Jordan’s engagement to Maddie in November of last year, I’ve been receiving wonderful questions about weddings in our community. I thought I would share some of those, along with answers, and then share my own reflection on Jordan and Maddie’s wedding.

Are Bruderhof weddings like mainstream weddings?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that they are a time of great celebration, that the couple take vows and exchange rings in front of family, friends, and their faith community, and that each wedding is unique and reflects the couple’s individuality.

No, in the sense that Bruderhof weddings are quite simple, and that the central focus of the wedding is the spiritual aspect of the union; the vows that are taken are for life, and the idea that a marriage is not just a step along the road of individual happiness, but a building block for God’s kingdom.

Does the father give the bride away? It’s up to the bride and groom and their parents. Maddie’s father gave her away to Jordan, and I doubt I will ever forget the touching simplicity and power of that moment. My father walked me to my wedding procession and we hugged and shared a cry before I took Chris’s hand to walk in a procession to our wedding service. (The procession was led by my joyous second-grade students; the girls were dressed as sunflowers – my favorite flower – and the boys were holding fishing rods to reflect Chris’s fisherman instincts.)

What does the bride wear? Something simple, modest, and usually light or white. Many Bruderhof brides pass their wedding dresses on to other brides to use which is a wonderful way to embrace simplicity. I wore my stepmother Roswith’s white wedding dress (it fit me perfectly, but I had the sleeves cut back to three-quarter length to accommodate for my July wedding. Roswith had married my dad in November.) For me, wearing my stepmother’s dress was a wonderful way to acknowledge the special bond that had grown between us over the years. My three sisters who married after me also wore that dress, and it meant a lot to our mother.

Maddie and Jordan

At a recent Bruderhof wedding I attended, very few of the non-Bruderhof guests brought gifts, and no community members appeared to be bringing the couple gifts – why is that? How do the couple get what they need for their new house? Because we live together in a community that strives to share everything in the spirit of the earliest churches, everything a couple needs for their new house will be provided for them. It won’t be a mansion, and the furniture and household goods in the house don’t belong to them per se, but they will have everything they need. Friends and family of the couple will often make a special gift to honor the occasion (sewing a dress, writing and performing a new song, painting a picture, making the wedding cake, etc.) but those will be given to the newlyweds during the celebrations prior to their wedding, or will be waiting in their new house. My gift to the couple was to make their wedding cake. I kept it simple and festive with whipped cream, frangipanis, and tiny cowboy boots and hats for the top. Chris carried it to the outdoor venue where – after the couple fed each other – it was enjoyed by everyone.

Probably the reason you didn’t see many non-Bruderhof wedding guests bringing gifts is because the couple asked them not to. Chris and I asked our wedding guests to refrain from bringing gifts because we were not keen to burden our newly-married adventure with “stuff,” and because we didn’t want people spending their precious money on things that the community had already provided us with. (Bruderhof couples do not set up a wedding registry.) We did, however, encourage those who insisted on bringing gifts to bring something consumable to share at a celebration. (One of my closest friends brought a slab of my favorite beer, Guinness.)

Does the bride have bridesmaids? No, not formally, but her sisters (if she has any and they are nearby) or close female friends will do everything they can to make sure all the little details are taken care of. And the groom a best man or best men? No, same as for the bride. But every part of the wedding – from coordinating the catering to organizing the decorations – is delegated across the community so that no one carries the entire burden.

with Swan Peak in the background

Is everywhere decorated with flowers? Yes, if they are available, but each wedding is different – simple and beautiful. Mostly, weddings are celebrated outside if the weather is kind (almost always here in Australia), which keeps the wedding decorating to a minimum. Who can beat a cathedral built from eucalyptus trees and floored with grass? A close friend of our family offered their ten blooming frangipani bushes to be plucked to decorate Jordan and Maddie’s special day – we could never have afforded that, and the simplicity and beauty of that gesture was amazing. (And we hardly made a dent in the blossoms!) All my wedding flowers – except the red roses that I carried – were wildflowers picked from fields on our community farm.

My great-niece carries the rings to the couple after they take their vows

Is the wedding ceremony followed by a reception or dancing? No, because usually we have been feasting, singing, and celebrating together as a community for at least a week. All the components of a conventional mainstream wedding are broken up across a few days to take the pressure off and allow all of the community to celebrate and take in each event. For example, the cake cutting might be done with all the children present (from the tiniest babies on up), the “reception” is put on as a massive feast in the days right before the wedding, and a very special prayer and worship service just for the couple and community members is held usually the day before the wedding. The focus of that worship service is to pray for the couple in specific, and for all of us to rededicate our lives to God.

Do the bride and groom go on a honeymoon? Yes, usually somewhere local for a week.

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As I reflect on these questions in light of my son’s recent wedding and my own wedding in the context of our life as a church, I get a sense of awe. Not because these weddings are the most important thing, but because a consecrated life in a church community gives a strong foundation for a couple to focus on what really matters in their relationship and their relationship to God. To be able to focus on the lifelong vows of a marriage (and the incumbent responsibilities and gifts these bring) instead of on building a financial footing upon which to even contemplate being able to get married (and the incumbent expectations modern marriages seem to have) is a gift.

I have always loved this description of marriage by Tertullian, an Early Church Father, in a letter to his wife, ca. 202 AD:

How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice.

They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in Spirit. They are in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit.

They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another.

Side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another, they never shun each other’s company; they never bring sorrow to each other’s hearts… Psalms and hymns they sing to one another.

Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present, and where He is, there evil is not.

Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York

Kent and I were married on the evening of June 7, 2008, outdoors with a view to the Catskill Mountains (which were hidden behind a Hudson Valley haze). The ceremony took place after a festive dinner with the three hundred-plus people who live in the Woodcrest community, plus a handful of guests. We had started the day with a wedding breakfast in my parents’ living room, this was a moment to reflect with both our parents on the scripture we had chosen (Colossians 3:17) and for their prayers and blessings for us. During the day we packed our bags, took a walk together, and in the afternoon had a “wedding tea” with nieces and nephews which included a game of drop-the-handkerchief. Sometime during the afternoon my friend Margarita dropped off the wedding dress – passed on from former brides – that she had made over and ironed for me, and my sister Dorothy gave me the white rosebud garland she had made. Family photos were accomplished just before dinner, and we all walked together to where the meal – prepared during the afternoon by the single youth – was ready.

the dinner before the wedding ceremony

Everything about the wedding – venue, flowers, menu, photographer, cake, the numerous celebratory events of the previous week, honeymoon destination – was planned and provided by the community, leaving Kent and me free to enjoy the occasion and, most importantly, to look forward to the new chapter of our lives that was beginning. I remember reading together from a letter that Bruderhof founder Eberhard Arnold to his soon-to-be-engaged son (my grandfather) that points to the purpose of a wedding: “My deepest wish is that you might found a family,” he wrote, “and do so hand in hand, building it up on the rock of Christ’s church.”

Our new family was part of the church community that celebrated our wedding with us, the same community that celebrated again when we welcomed our first child a year later and that has supported us when times got tough during the years since. Each wedding is unique, as Norann said, but they are also all the same: not an end in themselves, but the beginning of something new.

Trudi – in Spring Valley, southwest Pennsylvania

Marianne—yes, the one in Woodcrest—compiled and edited a wonderful collection of George MacDonald’s writings.¹ There I found a beautiful thought on marriage, an excerpt from MacDonald’s book Donal Grant:

MacDonald touched on the awesomeness of God who loves us more than we can fathom. Weddings should be a celebration of this great gift.

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And what of singleness? I know many who read this blog are single. Are singles less loved? No. I believe marriage and singleness are both gifts, although it’s sometimes hard to understand how. I look forward to sharing more thoughts on that in another post….

Weddings are wonderful occasions as Norann and Marianne described and I really enjoy preparing and decorating, or practicing up a performance either with friends or students. Five of my sisters are married and many of my friends, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities. Each wedding is a joyous time that brings the community together as we celebrate and acknowledge the couple’s step of faith and commitment. We all know the journey will have ups and downs.

But it is true that weddings can also send a stab of pain through the heart of single women who have little hope of a wedding of their own, even though they know marriage is “not all roses”.

And so I remember Jesus who never experienced the gift of marriage Himself, but had such joy in weddings that He performed His first miracle at one. To me, that is the standard of selfless love we need to attain and then Jesus will be with us in those moments of pain.

I also know that among single friends, we share many good laughs because joking about the hard things lightens and shares the burden. I don’t know what I would do without friends to laugh at life with!

Trudi

Recently warmer weather has turned the lovely winter landscape into the brown and gray so typical of late winter. It’s when I wait and wonder if the world will ever be beautiful again. But lately, the sight of sap buckets on trees and the smell of sap boiling reminds me that there is life flowing through all things and at the right time new growth will spring forth. Since I haven’t penned a new poem on the subject, I’ll share an old one. . .

Waiting

Marianne

Winter weather means long evenings at home, which means family games. While we enjoy board games – most often Wingspan, Monopoly, and Ticket to Ride – our most favorite game is a simple-minded card game called I Doubt It. Here are the rules – try it at home! (We use two decks for seven or more people.) This is a game that works for all ages and abilities, is outrageously fun, and is a great activity for the end of a family dinner once the dishes are cleared and everyone is still sitting around the table.

Norann

Chris and I just returned from a brief visit to the USA.

It was an abrupt seasonal shift to step out of a hot Australian summer into the deep-freeze of upstate New York. Being a Hudson Valley girl (I lived there from when I was 3 to 22 years of age) I loved watching the sun rise every morning over the Hudson, and listen to the mighty river’s freeze and thaw and creak and flow.

“This is the lordly Hudson, hardly flowing / who has no peer in Europe or the East.” Paul Goodman

That’s all for now folks. Enjoy the season you’re in!

1. The book is The Gospel in George MacDonald: Selections from His Novels, Fairy Tales, and Spiritual Writings. If you’re intimidated by long nineteenth-century novels, this is a great way to be introduced to one of the wisest guides to life as a Christian.