friday and saturday brought us back topinecrest, the presbyterian camp where andy and i both spent time as campers and counselors. i officiated a five o’clock wedding there in the beautiful new chapel, so we packed up the whole fam damily and left memphis around noon. after the hour’s drive, there was plenty of time to enjoy the fall day in the country before the shin-dig.

i could write a whole post about what it’s like to try to keep up with two small boys at a wedding. there was the part where i was making small talk in the food line while the monkey engulfed himself in my dress and wrapped his body around my legs, the scene where the bird ran off into the wooded darkness, the ten minutes before the ceremony that i spent frantically looking for drawing paper for the monkey, and the constant and desperate begging for slices of the not-yet-cut wedding cake.

but this is not a post about the split second it takes for my family to turn a party into a circus. this is a post about marrying young.

the ages of the bride and groom were a topic of conversation among dismayed family and friends during the wedding weekend. the bride is 22 and the groom is 21, which makes them a year younger than andy and i were when we got married and several years older than the bride’s parents when they got married. modern wisdom suggests that it is best to do a bit of growing up before one joins one’s life to another, and though this was not my experience, i certainly see the value in doing so. but it seemed appropriate, in celebrating this couple’s courtship and marriage, to highlight the particular challenges and joys that arise when the newlywed years contain the decisions and experiences brought about by college, graduations, grad schools, vocational discernment, and watching cake boss on tv. here are some excerpts from my homily:

[Groom] and [Bride], “people are going to say that you are too young to get married.”

At least, these were the words of [Bride’s] dad, who warned his daughter of such nay saying.

 Then, he shared his own experience of marrying early, and of the grand privilege it is to grow up with one’s partner. There is something to be said for learning life’s lessons together in young adulthood… and in every age and stage to follow.

[Groom’s] sister chose and read scripture from 1^st Peter for this service, and, [Groom and Bride,] I cannot think of more fitting words for you. These words are a call for all people of faith to discern what our God-given gifts are, and to use these gifts to uplift those around us.

 This kind of discernment is ongoing, of course, but the crash course in self-discovery happens when we are young. This means that by marrying early, you will be doing the kind of work together that many people do alone…

…We are all here to celebrate the life you are building together, your shared journey of faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Let this be so, in young adulthood…. and in every age and stage to follow.

of course, there was much  more to it than this, but while i was delivering the homily, i had one of those rare (for me) preaching experiences where i was actually feeling the words and saying them at the same time. all weddings are supposed to be a time for all of those in partnership to celebrate their lives together but at this occasion, it was especially natural and easy for andy and me to celebrate our marriage. we were in a place where we did some growing up together, and 17 years after we chased campers around the pines, we found ourselves chasing our very own children among those same old trees.

there is no one right time to get married, but marrying young was right for us. it was right for the parents of saturday’s bride, and it seems right for the newlyweds, who are presently honeymooning in st. lucia — the same place andy and i went after our wedding 11 years ago.