Especially for Brides
Through the Simplicity Comes the Joy
Sonja Herbert
& Joel Ervice
10 January 2009
Friends Meeting House Berkeley, California “W e were supported by so many friends preparing for our wedding,” Sonja Herbert shared about her wedding day, “that I could be ready, able and present to enter the marriage being so calm and happy. I remember thinking: this is the day that my new life starts!”
Sonja Herbert and Joel Ervice both do public health advisory work for non-profit organizations in Berkeley, California. They had three months to plan their wedding and wanted to keep things practical, simple and ecologically friendly. “We didn’t want to mortgage our future life together by how we started our life together,” Sonja explained. And it wasn’t just about budget, but also it was important for the couple, who had been together for five years, to be able to practically create a wedding celebration that matched their value system. Proximity was a key. “I was delighted,” Sonja continued, “that I could walk to most of the wedding vendors on my way home from work.” The simplicity became joyful in the intimacy of the Friends Meeting House near their home where the nature of the reverent space suited the hearts of the couple. “The arrangement allowed the people that we felt so close to emotionally to be physically close during the wedding ceremony,” Sonja shared. In the Quaker tradition where one does not simply attend the wedding but declares their support of the marriage, Sonja’s mother and Joel’s uncle gave “active affirmations” called “speaking into the light.”
Adding their own rituals, Sonja and Joel utilized the intimate space during the wedding service by sending their rings round the gathering and focused on each person as they took the rings. Like the design of ancient rituals of the heart, giving this kind of loving attention “created the world where we could be that joyous,” Sonja said. Yet soon after, in such lush meditative space, “everyone else melted away and Joel was the only person in the room.” One of the reasons Sonja was able to create this sense of oneness, where hearts seem to merge into one spirit, was that while planning their wedding, she kept her focus on her future marriage. “It was rather disconcerting,” she explained, “because people kept asking what the ‘theme’ of our wedding was. Well, if there was a theme, it was ‘getting married, sharing our lives together, to feel truly present with each other.’ ” Wednesday before the wedding weekend, Sonja gave her “to-do notebook” to her friend Virginia. Virginia was helping coordinate wedding activities as well as assigning tasks to other friends. “It was a crystal moment for me,” Sonja recalled, “I would not have the wedding to-do list matter over the joyousness of getting married to Joel. I just let go!”
Following her intention worked beautifully because on Saturday, the day of her wedding, Sonja was calm and relaxed. “I got a massage, went for a swim, had lunch with friends, and called other friends who I had not been in touch with for a while—I think I startled some of them when I called!” As Sonja and Joel’s friend Carolyn, a Unitarian minister who led their ceremony declared: “Nothing else matters if at the end of the day you are happily married.”
In traditional Quaker wedding services, there is no minister or planned songs—friends stand and declare affirmations of good tidings for the couple as they are so moved. Nor does the couple repeat vows. They simply sit in silence and look into each other’s eyes and stand when they get that they are married. Sonja and Joel’s ceremony seemed to inherit the sacred intimacy from these past traditional services. The couple and the room were aglow even before everyone lit their individual candles to walk round the corner to join each other in receiving the newlyweds into the heart of the community.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY: Julie Mikos |
