TO THE EDITOR:
Some time ago Rhode Island Catholic ran several articles on marriage/wedding etiquette and the whys of some of the more practical local church regulations. Certainly, much behavior that priests run into today (lack of interest in readings and prayers; immodest wedding gowns, inebriated wedding attendants) must be extremely frustrating. However, the door swings both ways.
During a recent discussion with the florist providing the flowers for our daughter’s upcoming wedding, she mentioned that she had had a difficult day the previous weekend as the flowers she had been instructed to take from the church building to the reception site had been locked inside the church immediately following the ceremony. She tried calling the pastor several times, but to no avail, so had to send an assistant to make a couple of new arrangements (at her expense) to bring to the reception site. When she was finally able to talk to the priest about it, he told her that the flowers were to have stayed in the church.
It is important to note, that the florist was very professional, telling me neither the name of the church nor of the pastor and mentioning that churches can make any rules they wish, but that she had been frustrated because she had been told to remove the flowers by the party that had paid for them. Which brings me to my point: with all due respect, when parents plunk down their hard earned money for flowers, they “own” those flowers.
If they do not need them as additions to the reception site flowers, then it is certainly a lovely gesture to leave them in the church for all to enjoy. However, most of us are not Donald Trump and need our flowers (the flowers we have paid for, not rented for an hour) to do double duty.
As servants of the Church challenge us to live more simply and we try to do so (by not spending ridiculous amounts on the trappings of a wedding day, in this case), they need to show a little more respect when we try to respond to their challenge.
Kathy Pesta
Wakefield, RI
