I had a complicated, confusing relationship with religion growing up. That doesn’t make me special, but it’s a fact about me nonetheless. That’ll be discussed here someday, or maybe it won’t. What’s pertinent for now is that I started to consider myself agnostic in my early twenties, and since my mid-thirties, I’ve generally considered myself atheist, if only because I don’t believe in capital-g-God. I’ve experienced enough to know there’s more to the world than what we can perceive under normal circumstances, so I’m not averse to the idea that there’s something bigger than us, but to me, the fact that human suffering is a thing means that the capital-g-God of the Torah, Bible, and/or Quran cannot exist, or if they do exist, they’re the biggest prick to ever do so, and if that’s what’s real, then I have no interest in pursuing it beyond this realm.¹

To that end, I became an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church in the summer of 2000, when I was 23 years old, as a larf. Cut to Spring 2007: my brother calls me up and asks me if I can “still do weddings”. I ask him what the hell he’s talkin about, and he says “I thought you were ordained, I’m gettin married and I wanted to see if you’d do the wedding”, and I say “oh shit, I guess I can still do weddings”, and I agree to do his wedding, and thus begins my brief foray into wedding-doing.

I went on to preside over a total of seven weddings, to the best of my recollection, the last one in (I think) 2015. My stats are kinda interesting/depressing. Five out of seven of those couples no longer exist today. Two out of seven were second marriages, and in both cases, I also presided over the first wedding. One of those two couples is also one of the two still-married couples.

I never turned anyone down flat when asked to officiate, because I’m a people pleaser, although I did politely decline when asked to perform a possible eighth in 2017, because I was given the opportunity to politely decline with no hard feelings. I’m thankful that Jamie gets me. See, the thing about me is that I r e a l l y hate talking in front of people. I know most people don’t like it, as such, but I truly, honestly, and sincerely, if given the option, would rather eat live hornets than ever again talk in front of more than five people, and even then I’ve gotta know at least four of those five people pretty fuckin well to even be kind of okay with it.

What I’m saying is: every single wedding ceremony I officiated was a waking nightmare for me. I was told by at least one guest at each wedding that they liked how “quick” my ceremony was. I was told by a lot of people at all of those weddings that they couldn’t really hear me. Every single time, I’m up there sweatin like Ted Striker tryna land Flight 209 at Gates 8-25…

…and I’m standin there tryin not to puke like Davie “Lardass” Hogan at the The Great Tri-County Bake Off and Pie Eat…

…and the whole time, I’m trying so goddamn hard to remember to enunciate, and speak up, and slow down, all of which I never do in day-to-day conversation, and every single time, I prayed to an empty sky that no one I cared about would ever again ask me to officiate their wedding, because I wasn’t sure I could go through that again.

Cut to the day before Easter, 2025: Sheila and I are visiting my father-in-law and his fiance. Both were married once before, and both lost their beloved spouses tragically within the past three years. They’d recently become engaged and had already moved into a new house together. The four of us are sitting on the back porch enjoying the spring weather and some cocktails, and the topic of their wedding comes up. Without even thinking, I offered to officiate. Time froze around me. I could see the words floating toward them, and I was powerless to stop them. I was already so fucking nervous.

They thanked me and said they’d keep it in mind. A couple days later, they set a date much nearer than any of us (including either of them) had expected, based solely on the fact that my brother-in-law would be in the states in early July. Sheila went to visit on Mother’s Day while I was working², and they discussed details and made plans and much to my relief, they’d booked a venue where the proprietor was also an ordained minister and a DJ.

Cut to, three days ago: Sheila gets a text and says “Dad wants to know if you’ll officiate the wedding”.

Me: What?! Why?! No! What?! I thought that was included! That guy’s gonna do it, right? I can’t!

Sheila: I think he just wants to include you, and probably make the ceremony a little more personal.

Me: What if they want me to mention God?! I don’t think I can do that! Oh God, Sheila, I can’t lead a prayer!

Sheila: I think you should just talk to him about it.

So I texted him and told him I’d be happy to do it, but that I wouldn’t feel comfortable performing any kind of religious ceremony or leading any prayers, and he said he wouldn’t dream of asking, and they just want simple ceremony. When I asked if they wanted anything specific, he asked me to “come up with something nice”, and said he had faith in me. When I asked how long they’d like it to be, he responded “not long – short but witty”, and here we are, less than 37 days away from me sweatin like Striker and tryin not to puke like Lardass while I talk in front of a group of people, all because I though it’d be funny to call myself “Rev. Joel” twenty-five years ago. I’m definitely retiring after this one. My shirts and my guts are both depending on it.

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1. The only church I’m interested in is Drug Church. ↩︎
2. It’s not without its perks, but by and large, working in the hospitality industry is for the fuckin birds. And not the good birds, like goldfinches, but the shit birds, like European starlings. ↩︎