Valentine’s Day – the day of love – and a time when people tend to reminisce about their wedding day and the things that made it so unique.
Marriage commissioner Donna Land has officiated at some 100 civil ceremony weddings and she has seen just how creative couples can be in celebrating their special day. From unusual settings to the most unexpected themes, she has witnessed a lot.
It’s because civil ceremonies can take place just about anywhere, and aside from just a handful of legal requirements, the sky is the limit, as long as the commissioner is willing to go along with it.
Land has attended some weddings that have tested her nerve, such as an early winter ceremony that took place in the middle of a frozen lake.
“I was scared to death the ice wasn’t thick enough to hold us up.”
After formalities and a quick exchange of “I do” between the bride and groom, Land hurried everyone off the ice to take care of paperwork on the hood of her truck. The bride’s wedding attire of jeans and high top snowmobile boots just added to the experience.
Summertime is when the wedding schedule is especially busy and Land has officiated up to three on the same day. Because most take place outdoors, she’s never left the house without her marriage commissioner survival kit of insect repellant and bottled water.
“You’re always having to deal with mosquitoes, heat and sunburn.”
Time is of the essence when travelling between back-to-back weddings, but sometimes directions to the venue can be vague, especially when the ceremony takes place in a hayfield, as is so common in the South Cariboo.
Land remembers following a set of directions that told her to “turn into the hayfield,” but being ranch country, every second property looked like a hayfield. She eventually found the right place where she was witness to a beautiful country wedding where the bride and groom rode in on horseback.
People like to incorporate lake views into their weddings, but at one ceremony, shoving off from shore with the bride and groom on a barge with no railings was almost more than Land could bear.
“We started moving and I got dizzy with the sway of the water. I was so afraid that I was going to drop the rings through the cracks in the floor.”
Weddings can really bring out the personalities, likes and dislikes of the happy couple and one that made a special impression on Land was a Halloween ceremony.
The venue was decorated with leafless twigs, sticks and lights, with carved pumpkins lining the aisle. Attendants were all dressed in black with orange accents and the cake topper was like something out of Tim Burton’s movie The Nightmare Before Christmas.
“They both loved Halloween and Goth was sort of their thing. It was really kind of neat.”
Camouflage was the theme for another wedding and even the bride had bits of camo fabric incorporated into her otherwise, elegant gown. The groom and his attendants all wore camo vests and youngsters in the party had camo T-shirts. Land fit right in with a camo T-shirt and slippers.
“It was so casual and everyone was so happy that this couple was getting married.”
One wedding she performed could easily have been a go, or a no-go when the bride planned the entire thing without informing her husband-to-be.
The couple, who were from another city, was staying at their local get-away cabin. Land arrived just as the bride emerged from another room, all prettied up, and announced to her bewildered man that she’d planned their wedding and did he still want to marry her.
Land says the fellow’s eyes welled up with tears as he said, “More than anything.”
Happy weddings are usually the rule rather than the exception but one ceremony had Land’s eyes filled with tears.
The bride was dying from cancer and one of her remaining wishes was to re-marry her first love who she’d divorced 25 years earlier.
“She was so thin the day they got married that I had to help tape her dress to her shoulders so it wouldn’t fall off. It was the saddest ceremony I’d ever been to, yet it was the most gratifying because I knew she was going to pass away with the love of her life by her side.”
While marriage is supposed to be “until death do we part,” another couple barely made it to the end of the night, says Land.
“They were married in the afternoon and didn’t even go to the reception hall. The next morning I get a call from the bride asking how to get the marriage annulled.”
Being a marriage commissioner has been interesting and educational, she says. In getting to the weddings, she has discovered backcountry roads she never knew existed and she’s seen a lot of beautiful sights.
“I’ve met some really cool people, too,” she says, adding not to mention a yellow lab with a bow tie around his neck that walked down the aisle with the bride’s father.
“It’s been a lot of fun.”
