On the subject of Wedding Ceremonies – Part I ~ Haulianlal Guite, IAS
Like everyone else, I have witnessed wedding ceremonies – in chapels, outside chapels, of Hindus, Muslims, even animists. Been a best man once, and have, in my capacity as a magistrate, performed some weddings myself.
Weddings come in various forms, the 6 principal ones being:
a. church wedding, where the concerned church leaders administer the ceremony;
b. public wedding, where the wedding takes place publicly but without religious presence;
c. ancestral wedding, where courtship ends with the bride simply brought to the house;
d. court wedding, where magistrates pronounce the wedding;
e. elopement, where the consensual couples consummate their relationship only in God’s presence, not in the presence of men; and
f. bride kidnapping, where the groom stole his bride without the latter’s approval.

And the reasons for marriage are as numerous as the type of weddings there are. An author once said, amusingly over-generalizing, that in the West, people marry the ones they love, and in the East, people love the ones they marry (no comment on that!). Whatever the case, I wish to address here a topic of great relevance for the highland peoples:
                                                                                what type of wedding is acceptable in the eyes of God?

This topic is of particular importance since it has apparently become a creedal requirement in many denominations that, unless the two are bonded together in a ministration by church leaders (priests, pastors, and the whole nine yards), the marriage is null and void. Some would even go further and say that if a wedding is “not Christian”, it is unholy; so the Lord won’t accept it.
This requirement of course makes all other types of wedding – civil wedding, ancestral wedding, court wedding and elopement – illicit. In fact, whether the religious pundits recognize it or not, it makes all Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and other unions unholy as well – including the wedding of our forebears (and their children, including many of us, are all born out of wedlock, meaning we are all illegitimate).

It is against such a manmade law touted to be religious, that I rebel; and herein I shall approach the issue from a scriptural and cultural angle.

Scriptural Perspectives on Wedding

The first fact that will strike any reader of the scripture on the topic of wedding is that the Bible takes for granted wedding ceremonies are civil, rather than religious, matters.

All recorded instances of wedding ceremonies in the scriptures, are civil in nature. Jesus himself, as we shall see, approved of them.
Some weddings in the Bible are simple; others are lavish, noisy and costly, with lots of gifts and plenty of eating and drinking – much like they are today.

Let us consider 5 weddings in the Bible as case studies:
1. Isaac and Rebecca – a case of arranged marriage (Genesis 24);
2. Jacob and Rachel – a case of love marriage (Genesis 29);  
3. The Benjamites in Judges – a case of mass bridal kidnapping (Judges 21);
4. Esther’s marriage – a case of trophy marriage (Esther 2); and
5. The wedding at Cana – whether it is love-cum-arranged, the Bible does not say (John 2).
Let us consider them in their order.

Isaac and Rebecca: a classic example of arranged, successful marriage. Isaac and Rebecca never saw the looks on each other till the consummation. It was a union fully based on trust. What is relevant for our purpose is that there was no religious involvement – no priest, no Melchizedek, who came forward to bless their matrimony. It is as simple as any wedding can be, reminiscent of our own ancestral weddings.
For the inspired account wrote of Isaac’s wedding, in Genesis 24:62-67:
“…Now Isaac … went out to the field … and he saw camels approaching. Rebecca also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, ‘who is that man in the field coming to meet us’? ‘He is my master’, the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.
Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebecca. So she became his wife, and he loved her…”

Jacob and Leah/Rachel: Apparently the child of Isaac and Rebecca refused to step onto his parents’ footsteps and flung himself to the opposite. Jacob’s marriage to Rachel was a classic case of love marriage – and perhaps “love at first sight” at that. Hear the tale the Bible spun on these lovebirds, which is as romantic as anything in the Bible can be (Genesis 29:18-20):
“…Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said (to Laban, her father), ‘I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel…So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed only a few days to him because of his love for her”.
Jacob’s love must have been enormous, crossing the 7 seas; for his bride price was happily working 14 years as a servant of his future father-in-law.

But the point relevant for us, here again, is that there is no record of any priest present in the wedding – although the celebration was there alright (Genesis 29:22):
“…so Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast…” is all the Bible has to say.

Marriage of the Benjamites: This is an exceptional case in an exceptional circumstance, an example of mass bride kidnapping sanctioned by the Israelite elders to save the tribe of Benjamin from extinction.
A huge feast was organized, during which the Benjamite remnants were permitted to catch anyone they could, and if they succeeded, the captives would become their wives (guys, don’t get your hopes up; the law will arrest you if attempt this kind of thing today).
Forget for the moment that it’s a case of kidnapping in an extraordinary circumstance. The point is that the priestly class, the Levites, was not involved in the wedding at all. Yet there is no indication to suggest God rejects even this type of wedding. Read the passage in Judges 21:19ff:
“…behold, there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh…therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, ‘Go and lie in wait in the vineyards…if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain, that we will say unto them, ‘be favorable unto them for our sakes: because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that ye should be guilty.
And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance…”

Xerxes and Esther: This is a case of interracial interreligious marriage. Esther was the trophy wife of King Xerxes of the Persians, and by all accounts, the wedding was most royal, with all kinds of celebrations – since of course it was a royal wedding, as recorded in Esther 2:17, 18:
“…now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality”.

Yet the important thing to note is that, in spite of the fact the wedding was gentilic, there is no indication God rejected this union. From this we may draw two relevant facts:
first, that God accepted any form of wedding, believers’ and non-believers’; and
second, wedding is a civil union, since there is no record of priest ordaining it.

Wedding at Cana: This is the only instance of wedding recorded in the New Testament (excepting parables). Apparently there was a huge feast in the village of Cana, and the family of Jesus was invited. Wines were served, the ceremony was pompous, and Christ approvingly participated. But the relevant point, yet again, is that it is a civil wedding.

The scriptures therefore record all sorts of weddings; yet there is not a slightest hint, not a verse that condemns any of the wedding forms. It must indeed be a scandal for those advocating “Christian Weddings” that the Old Testament, which has 613 ceremonial laws on almost everything under the sun, has not a single law regulating wedding ceremonies.

Let us summarize the 5 cases here:

The Couples	Type	Ceremony	Religious?	Approved?
Isaach & Rebecca	Arranged	None	No; ancestral	Yes
Jacob & Rachel	Love	Yes	No; public	Yes
Benjamites	Forced	May not be	No; elopement	Yes
Xerxes & Esther	Trophy	Yes	No; court-like	Yes
Wedding at Cana	Unknown	Yes	No; public	Yes

From these facts we may reasonably infer the following conclusions:

a. So far as the biblical record goes, wedding is entirely a secular/civil union;
b. Wedding ceremonies and celebrations may or may not be performed;
c. Weddings can be ancestral, public, court-like, elopement – or even, kidnapping.
Therefore, we have to conclude that –
God accepts all forms of wedding whatsoever and blesses them. In other words, all such marriages are holy.

That there are religious marriages under the extra-biblical Talmudic Law at the present time does nothing to change the fact there were no religious marriages in Mosaic Law in the Old Testament times.

There are 2 unions which are not holy, however:
a. Homosexual Marriages, which are scripturally illicit by definition;
b. Divorced Marriages, where one of them is divorced, the scriptures refuse to accept them on the ground that it is adulterous (Matt 5:32).
As per the scriptures, these are the only unholy marriages.
Except on these grounds, all weddings are acceptable in the sight of God.

What of the New Covenant, in the Testament of Christ? Do we find any example of “Christian Wedding”? There is none whatsoever.
No record of two Christians getting married – although the New Testament abounds in commands regarding married life. No record of the apostles ordaining a wedding. No record of Ephesian elders/pastors proclaiming, “I now declare thee man and wife”.

Which must make us ponder: if the inspired Word all-sufficient in religious matters does not have an iota, an instance, an example, of a religious wedding – meaning the scriptures are completely silent about wedding – does it not mean, by logically necessity, the wedding ceremony is completely non-religious? For, if it were religious, the all-sufficient scriptures must have some prescriptions or directions on how to conduct a religious wedding.

Thus, we can say that it is a Great Catholic Lie to presume there is such a thing called “Christian Wedding”, when there is none (there is such a thing called “Christian Marriage”, however, which refers to what comes after the wedding). This lie can almost be stated as a theorem:

The Great Catholic Lie:
                                      the presumption that there is a Christian Wedding,
            when there is none whatsoever, since the scriptures are silent about it.
Why Catholic? Because, it is the Roman Catholic Church which first introduced this wedding ceremony into religious law within Christendom, and made it one of the 7 Mass.

In other words, barring divorced and homosexual unions, God blesses all kinds of union; God unites all kinds of union. All kinds of wedding are holy.

God’s interest in marriage comes only after the ceremony, when the couples begin living their lives together. For therein the scriptures now say:
“…a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man pull asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6).
“…wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord…husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her…in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself…let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:22-33).
“...the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does…” (I Corinthians 7:1-5).
From these verses, and many others besides, we can conclude married life is indeed divine.

Has the Church an authority to make extra-biblical laws?

Some may object at this point that the Church has the authority to make by-laws and creeds. This objection is as erroneous as anything can be. The Church, being the only purely divine institution there is, is as religious as anything can be and therefore, completely bound by the law of Christ – meaning the scriptures. Nothing else besides.
If the scriptures say the church has the authority to do this, then it has that authority. If it does not give that authority, then the church has none.
How do we know this? Because of I Timothy 3:16, 17: “…all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God maybe thoroughly equipped for EVERY good work”.

Now if the scriptures, talking about faith, “thoroughly equip us for every good work”, it means that whatever the scriptures want us to do in regards religious matters, the scriptures would have something to say about it. If it wants the church to make marriage laws, it would have given the church the authority to make it.
So, do the scriptures endow the church with the authority to make wedding laws, among other things?
No!

The church has no such authority at all, since there is no scriptural verse which gives the church the authority to make such laws. Therefore, the church that makes laws where the scriptures does not, is involved in a very unhealthy practice of going beyond the truth, which the scriptures condemn as being Pharisaic (Matt 15:8). Read the text on “vain worship”: “but in vain they worship me”, said Jesus.
Who? Those who “teach as doctrines the commandments of men”. If a wedding law of the church is not found in the scriptures, the word of God, can we say it is the commandments of God? We cannot. If it is not the commandments of God for not being found in the scriptures, yet is taught as if it is, then it is vain worship, for they “teach as doctrines those commandments of men”. In Mark’s parallel account, Christ continued, “…you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition”. (Mark 7:9).

Let me explain further.
To think the church has to make wedding laws when the scriptures do not think so, is an indirect way of saying, “well, the scriptures are incomplete; they are not sufficient for our religious life…so we need to add some laws to fulfill our manifold religious needs, the needs of the modern world and all that”. Which directly contradicts I Timothy 3:16, which says the scriptures are sufficient for all purposes of faith; and comes under the condemnation of Revelations 22:18: “…if anyone ADDS ANYTHING to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll…”
Certainly making religious laws where the Bible does not, counts as addition!

Does that mean wedding in the chapels, or weddings organized by the Church, is not scriptural? No – so long as the wedding is conducted purely as a form of worship.
However, if conducted as a form of worship, the church cannot make up any separate wedding laws on “how to organize a wedding ceremony, what wedding is acceptable and what not, and other blahs”. Why? Because all religious practices of the Church must be sanctioned by the scriptures. Otherwise, to make such laws where the Bible does not, is to go beyond the written word (Deut 4:2; Proverbs; I Corinthians 5, Revelations 22) – a great sin in the sight of God.
To make (religious) laws where the scriptures do not is to worship God “in the traditions of men” (Matt 15:9), rather than in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

Therefore, as in any other worship service, when a wedding is organized by the church, it must be done without any associated extra-biblical law whatsoever; and on the conveniences and expediency of the church and the loving couples instead.
Thus, if the church were to participate in the wedding, the wedding maybe organized in the chapel, in community halls, in public grounds, anywhere; can be done by a pastor, a deacon, by a normal member, by anyone; and the couples may wear any form of dress they see fit – Western or tribal, anything at all. Depending on convenience, expediency and agreement of the church leaders and the married couple concerned – decidedly not based on any extra-biblical creed or law.

Let me state it as emphatically as I can that I am not opposed to church weddings as such. I am opposed only to the church making wedding laws, since they are unscriptural; and imposing them on the members in such a way those who do not abide by them are condemned.
Again, under ordinary circumstances (there can be extraordinary ones), I do not personally condone any form of non-consensual wedding, such as bride kidnapping. But that is a personal opinion rather; the scriptures accept any form whatsoever: this is my point.

So the answer to our question, barring homosexual and divorced weddings, is this:
Any type of wedding is acceptable and holy in the sight of God.

You need not fear what the church would do to you. The Lord accepts your marriage even if the church does not; since the Lord, who sees all, is witness to any form of consummation and so, your union is holy.