On November 13th, my husband and I attended a wedding for one of his co-workers in the LA / Pasadena area.
I must say this was one of the most interesting weddings that I can say that we or I have ever attended. The ceremony was held at the Holy Mary and St. Pishoy Coptic Orthodox Church. The bride, Susan was Korean and the groom, Mark was Egyptian and they decided to hold a traditional ceremony in the Mark's faith, which is Coptic Christianity or more simply Egyptian Christianity.
The ceremony ran about a little over an hour and had everything from homilies and or chants, not sure which term is correct; beautiful crowns and religious robes for the bride and groom; long red ribbons that were placed around the bride and groom; a unique spiritual instrument that emitted smoke during the ceremony and several other elements. At one point in the ceremony, as the bride and groom wore their red ribbons, spiritual robes and crowns they were instructed to lean the heads together to join their crowns together and many of guests in the pews smiled or laughed lightly. They then held the position of leaning together for quite some time as the priest read a passage and I started to think - does this now mean they are joined together as husband and wife?
During the ceremony, the bride and groom never spoke a word and the priest read the scriptures and or messages with their backs turned away from the guests and were side view to the bride and groom, which I was not sure quite why I like many guests, found myself continually confused throughout the ceremony. It was not until I saw the bride and groom knelt down, did I even realize that now they must been officially married. As you see, there were no vows as we all are familiar with and when they exchanged rings they did not say anything, it was a ceremony element between them and the priest - we could see them exchange the rings but nothing was said that we could hear. Lastly, they were never a "final kiss your bride moment", I guess this is not part of this tradition.
Needless to say, this was one interesting wedding ceremony with many unique and beautiful elements - I only wish that I remembered my darn camera and that someone would have either narrated what was taking place in the ceremony or that programs were provided to walk us all through what was taking place so most of us would have felt like a part of the ceremony rather than watching "clueless" and "lost in translation".
Good bye until my next "Life in LA" event.
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