A wedding

At the moment, in my “matchmaker’s” story, I’m writing a wedding. In every one of my books, there has been a wedding. No surprise there. I write romance. <g>

But after twenty-something books, how do you make a wedding different? Answer: You can’t. Or at least I can’t. Not the place — a church is a church and in the 19th century that’s where most people got married.

My descriptions of the church are generally reminiscent of the churches I attended growing up — particularly the old Anglican church in Portland (Victoria, Australia) which is a lovely old bluestone church, lit by stained glass windows, with gorgeous carved wood inside, and brass plaques that commemorate important people in the life of the parish.

It’s the oldest Anglican church in Victoria, built in 1856.

I used to sing in the choir, from beautifully carved choir stalls, and gaze up at the stained glass windows and the colorful patterns they threw. The church always smelled the same — a mix of beeswax polish, brass polish, fresh flowers and incense. So that’s what I describe — more or less every time I write a wedding.

So how can I make each wedding different?
By concentrating on the participants, what they’re feeling and thinking. Are they nervous? Excited? Joyful? Triumphant? Feeling dread?

This wedding is a convenient one, more or less forced on the groom (otherwise he’ll lose his farm) and on the bride (she needs to escape her brutal father.)

Tom, the groom, is depressed, a widower still mourning the wife and child he lost three years before. He’s so sad, he’s been letting the farm go to rack and ruin, and he’s months behind in the rent. Generations of his family have farmed it, so his landlord (Marcus, Lord Alverleigh) gives him one last chance: Marry this woman and take on a handful of orphans, or leave the farm forever.

The bride, Esther, is a shy, repressed, 28 year old spinster, the only daughter of a brutal fire-and-brimstone preacher. Lady Alverleigh (Tessa) notices the bruises and resolves to rescue Esther. Her solution is to get Esther married to Tom, and give them some orphans to raise. Esther yearns for children so for her, this is the clincher: for the chance to raise and love children, she’ll marry a stranger.

The organ at St Stephen’s.

So after one meeting — with neither bride nor groom particularly impressed with each other — they’re getting married, quietly in the Alverleigh family chapel.

Both are agreed it won’t be a normal marriage — they’ll have separate bedrooms for a start. She will be responsible for the house and garden, and he will be responsible for the farm.

And so, I’m writing the wedding. And because I can’t imagine a wedding without music, this church has an organ, just like the one at St Stephen’s. Because it’s the Alverleigh chapel and lords can afford an organ, can’t they?

What will happen after that? You can probably guess how it will end up, but it’s how it will unfold that matters, not how it ends.

If you’re married, I’d love to hear how and where you got married.