One of the things I hear fairly often when I’m shooting a wedding ceremony is Relationship Advice. Though the advice is not directed at me per se -- as a Priest or a Rabbi or some other learned official stands in front of the couple being married and talks to them, publicly, about challenges they’ll face in their coming years together -- the wedding guests (and I) certainly benefit by the lecture nevertheless.
I remember one minister who addressed the guests, telling them: “If a year or 10 years from now, you guys are out with the groom, or you ladies are out with the bride, and he or she begins to gripe about something their mate has done, your responsibility is to be a friend of the marriage, not of the bride or groom. Tell the bride or groom you don’t want to hear their griping; encourage them to go home and communicate with their mate, to fix things."
It’s interesting how we human beings communicate with one another. Just this morning, for example, as I did chores out at our barn, I saw a feather that I realized Leah had found and tucked under a fence post wire. I took Leah’s impromptu, feather-on-the-post art installation to be a kind of note to me, which I interpreted to read: “Hey, check this out! Pretty cool, huh?”
I’m fairly sure I’m correct in what my mate meant to communicate to me through that feather, though I also suspect that, had she been there in person, she would have gently added: “While you are in the barn, could you please give the sheep fresh water, and feed the chickens, and...”
