A Time of Reinvention: When Traditions No Longer Serve Us
Sip happens...
How one couple staged a "celebration of marriage" that centered their community
A funny thing is happening to our gatherings during this prolonged and confusing pandemic. In the process of postponing, shrinking, cancelling, and rescheduling, our gatherings are being deconstructed. The different pieces of a gathering that used to knee-jerk go together are now — by necessity — being pulled apart and examined and re-imagined. Nowhere do I see this more clearly than in weddings, which these days are often broken up into multiple events. And the question couples are being forced to contend with is actually relevant to all of us: What is the role and purpose of our community at this gathering?
I recently heard from a couple, Ashley and Tanner, who cancelled their 120-person IRL wedding last April. Not wanting to postpone their life, they instead got married in a tiny outdoor ceremony last fall. While they’ve treasured being married, they both felt that something was missing. “It didn’t feel that our marriage was incomplete, but because the witnessing and community portion of the wedding was left out, the ceremony that pushed us into the next phase of our lives felt incomplete,” Tanner told me.
When the vaccine arrived in the spring, the couple decided to invite their friends and family to a gathering this fall, but weren’t totally sure what it was. It certainly wasn’t the same wedding they had cancelled. Life had moved on. It would be a different type of gathering. But what?
When I’m working with folks to figure out the purpose of their event, I often start by getting them to think about its name. What do we call this thing? A gathering’s name is more than a name. It’s also a social contract. Names tell us, as guests, how to behave, what is expected, and what our role will be. A dinner party: come and be relatively interesting. A workshop: roll up your sleeves and get ready to contribute. A hootenanny: bring your banjo!
So what should they call it? Ashley and Tanner knew that “wedding” was the wrong word. Their gathering wasn’t a delayed wedding. They were already married. But it wasn’t a reception either. That felt stiff and formal. Though they wanted dancing at this thing, it was more than a “dance party.” And they wanted some kind of moment that brought in their community, but what? There wasn’t a template to follow.
As I spoke with Ashley and Tanner, it became clear to me that they were navigating a paradox between a sense of completion and incompletion.
Courtesy: Design by Hyphen
Ultimately, they invited their guests to a “celebration of their marriage” and asked a friend to host an invented ceremony of sorts, which included a communal vow. Guests were told ahead of time to be ready to Feast, and to Toast, and to Dance. As guests walked in, the couple greeted them by handing out vintage postcards inscribed with personalized note “to let them know that individually they’re seen,” Tanner said. “We spoke directly to them and then they turned around and wrote thoughts or wishes to us” on blank postcards. The couple repurposed their invitations for the April 2020 wedding-that-wasn't by cutting them up and making them into nametags. (See: "Ryan.")
Courtesy: Design by Hyphen
Throughout the evening, each person made either a “complete” or “incomplete” mark on a canvas, which served as a visual guestbook. It became a field of marks that were “strange but lively and unexpected,” Ashley said. Tanner wore his trademark high-tops, while Ashley wore a white dress and clogs to the ceremony before changing into a colorful green dress for the rest of the night. Instead of vows, they began the ritual part of the ceremony by each speaking aloud what their experience of the pandemic has been, and what it was like to be married without their community. They articulated the feeling. And then they invited everyone in.
“The communal vow was from a Celtic blessing and in the middle of that, Tanner and I were able to say ‘Amen, Amen,’ and then the community in front of us was able to say, ‘Amen, Amen,’” Ashley said. “I think the end of that felt like it completed the circle.” The dinner, toasting and the dancing felt like the beginning...of their new beginning. When it was time to say goodbye, guests received an 8 oz. bag of locally-roasted coffee with a custom label that read “Sip Happens.”
The art of modern gathering is the recognition that so many of the rituals we have inherited no longer serve the reality in front of us. That was true even before the pandemic. The ways in which we married did not reflect the possibility that couples might come from different cultures or belief systems or genders. The way so many meetings were being run reflected decisions some other manager made years earlier. Even the ways in which we worshipped or fundraised, in so many cases, reflected realities of generations before.
And now, in this moment — at work, in how we wed, and how we create wonder — there’s space to paint on the canvas again.
Whether you may be deconstructing a wedding, a book festival, or a leadership retreat, we have an unusual moment to think deeply and to ask, like Ashley and Tanner: Why do we want to do this now? What needs have already been filled that we can put away? What new needs have arrived that we actually need to address or speak into being? And, as always, how do we bring our people along with us?
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In Case You Missed It
On Being with Krista Tippett: Remaking Gathering: Entering the Mess, Crossing the Thresholds
Remaking Gathering: It is such an honor to join Krista Tippett in this week's episode of ON BEING, a podcast I've long loved. The episode and the transcript are available at the link above.
Over the summer, I sat down with writer T. Cole Rachel for Departures to discuss the return to a new kind of public life. We covered how to navigate offices again, how to decide whether or not to show up for that party, and gathering diets. You can read the full interview at the link above.
Inspirations
A Healing Encounter: My friend Jack Saul, a psychologist and the director of the public arts and conversation project Moral Injuries of War, ran some powerful collective rituals called “Reconciliation — A Healing Encounter” on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Roxborough, PA. The event gathered Iraqi refugees and American veterans in a traditional Iraqi structure called a mudhif, where they shared their experiences and listened to a 25-minute sound collage. The goal of the event, Jack told the Philadelphia Inquirer, was to help attendees start to heal their moral injuries resulting from the war in Iraq.
