Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1875 — Wedding Anecdotes. [ARTICLE]

Wedding Anecdotes.

When the collector of rare and curious specimens of insects and flowers and tn inends finds new objects of interest he sticks a pin in them, or puts them in alcohol, or labels them, and then sits down to count his collections and see what he has actually gathered. In the same way we may stick pins in the various experiences of life, and thus collect a museum of rare specimens. The present collection of wedding anecdotes are specimens of eccentricities at this trying hour that have couie across the writer’s path. We see plenty of curious epitaphs in cemeteries; let us look at .some wedding scenes as strange as any of these. A young clergyman, at the first wedding he ever had, thought it was a very good time to impress upon the couple before him the solemnity of the act. “ I hope. Dennis,” he said to the coachman, with his license in his hand, “you -have well considered this solemn step' in life.’’ ** I hope so, your riverence,” answered Dennis. “ It's a very important step you’re taking, Marj’,’' said the minister. “ Yes, sir, I know it is,” replied Mary whimpering. “ Perhaps we had better wait a while.” ” Perhaps we had, your riverence,” chimed in Dennis. The minister, hardly expecting such a personal application of his exhortation, And seeing the five-dollar note vanishing before his eyes, betook himself to a more •cheerful aspect of the situation, and said: Yes, of course it’s solemn and important, you know, but it’s a very happy time, alter all, when people love each -other. Shall we go on with the service!” “ Yes. your riverence,” they both replied. and they were soon made one in the bonds of matrimony, and that young minister is now very careful how he brings on the solemn view of marriage to timid couples. A party came to a clergyman's house one evening to be married. Everything went on harmoniously until the woman came to,the word “ obey” in the service. Here a ensued. « y Bver—Bcverl~'-she saidr A ‘ I did not know that word'was in the service, and I twill never say it!” “ Oh, dear.” remonstrated her partner, ••‘do not make trouble now. Just say it—it even if you don't metm it. Say it for my sake—for your dear John's sake!” “Never-never!” insisted the high-spir-ited dame. “ I will not say what Ido not mean, and Ido not mean to obey. You must goon,sir,” she added, to the clergyman, “ without that word." - “ That is impossible, madam," replied the minister. “ I cannot marry you untiess you promise‘to love, cherish and •obey* jour husband.” “ Won’t you leave us fora little while foeether?’’* interceded the young man. 4J I think I can manage her after awhile.” So the minister went back into his study and wrote on his sermon for an hour and a half, and finally, at a quarter past ten o'clock there » —came a tapping— As of some one gently rapping, "*• -and the mild-mannered benedict informed ■the parson that at last, after a long wrestling of spirit, his “ dear Jane” had consented to say “obey.” But how that compromise was brought about no one ever knew.

I have often heard this Same clergyman relate how, after a wedding ceremony on one occasion which occurred in bis own parlor, the husliand whispered to the brand-new bride as the} - approached the door: “ Mary, have you got any small change?” Hieold-Swedes’ Church in Philadelphia was the famous mark ing-ground for nearly 200 years to all the neighborhood and the churches in that vichmy. The rec-ord-book of that venerable parish is teeming with marriages. There has to lie an “ extension” made to that department in even- new register. Notes and memoranda adorn the pages of the “wedding-col-umns” explanatory of the different couples. <)ne clergyman kept a list of toreign sailors (with a wife very probably in every large port) and runaway country girls whom he had refused to unite in matrimony because of bis suspicions, or because of the lateness of the hour, or of the absence of witnesses. Colored weddings have always a riclily humorous side. The colored race is a susceptible, imi tativc one, and when they are fine, as at weddings, they are generally superfine. A clergyman was called on upon one occasion to officiate at a colored wedding. “ We assure you; sah,” said the gentlemanly darkey, “ that this ycre wedding, sah. is to la-very ‘apropos’ —quite a la mode, Sah.” “ Very well,” replied the Clergyman, “ 1 will try: to do everything in my power to gratify the wishes of the parties.” So, after the dinner and dancing and supping was over, the groom’s “ best man” called again on the ihinister, and left him a ten-dollar fee. “ I hope everything was as your friends desired it?” said the urbane clergyman. “ Well, sail, to tell the truth, M"r. Johnson was a little disappointed,” answered the groomsman. “Why, I took my robes,” said the minister. “Yes, shli—it wasn't that.” “ I adhered to the rubrics of the church.” “ Yes. sail, that was all right.” “1 was punctual, and shook hands with the couple. What more could I do?” Well, sah, Mr. Johnson, lie kind o’ felt hurt, you see, because you didn't salute the bride!" I remember a friend who in. the early 'days of his ministry was met by a couple as be caiiie out of church, who wanted to lie married. He turned back to oblige the party, and found at the last that they had made up their minds to drive off in their buggy to some other church. “ But may I ask,” lie inquired of the man, “why-you first ask me to marry you and then change your minds in this way?” No answer came from the groom, but the young woman, lifting up the back curtain of thebuggy, called out: “Well, you see, I) hadn’t got a look at the minister afore, and, to tell the truth, you’re so young and innodent-like that I’m kind of feared you won’t marry us right, so I’d rather trust myself to someone who’s done it a good many times, and is sure he knows haw.”— Appletcns' Journal.