Crowned: An Orthodox Christian Wedding Guide

FOREWORD

Many girls dream about their wedding day from a young age. Our daughter, along with her best friend, were planning their weddings and resolving to be each other’s maid of honor at the ages of ten and seven! And indeed, most of that did happen.

Presbytera Krista Fedorchak and Delaney Clodfelter must have done that kind of dreaming and planning at a young age as well. This experience, and their experiences with their own and others’ weddings, have helped inspire them to write this book. Their aim is to provide a clear-cut way for engaged women, along with their fiancés, to simplify and streamline all the necessary planning for their big day.

The authors are two of our many wonderful seminarian wives at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where we’ve been part of the community for over thirty-four years. Since they knew we have written quite a bit about marriage, they asked us to give them some editorial advice as they were working on the book. This we did with pleasure, for we saw very quickly the book’s potential to be a great resource for any engaged couple wanting to plan their wedding, whether big or small, even without the assistance of a professional wedding planner. The authors have provided a way to make beautiful and uplifting what could well be quite tedious and frustrating. For they offer very practical, down-to-earth guidance to the engaged couple on how to remember, negotiate, and manage together as a team—with Christ always at the center—the seemingly countless details involved with planning a wedding, all the way from selecting the date to sending the thank-you notes.

The well-chosen inspirational quotations from the Orthodox wedding service itself—and from St. John Chrysostom, Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, and Elder Aimilianos—add much to reinforce the emphasis in the book upon marriage as a sacrament. The authors urge the couple to make sure to invite Christ to be at the center of all their planning and to pray that He is present at both the ceremony and the reception. They also remind the engaged pair that it’s the ceremony itself that’s most important—and not whether every moment transpires as hoped for!

We believe this simple yet elegant book, practical and beautiful at the same time, will be a great help for many engaged couples as they prepare for their wedding day. Its guidance will assist the soon-to-be bride and groom in focusing—and staying focused—on what, deep down, they would really like to happen on their very special day. It will help them to keep in mind the needs of those involved in the planning as well as the needs of those attending the ceremony and reception. The book’s wisdom will also assist the couple to stay at rest in Christ—even in the midst of deciding about and handling the inescapable nitty-gritty details of it all.

Through prayerfully following the suggestions in this book, the planning process itself, even for a big wedding, can become a shared experience of joy for the engaged couple, knitting them even more closely together. This careful planning, then, will provide a firm foundation for the wedding and reception to be truly beautiful, inspirational, love-filled, and Christ-centered. May this indeed be the case—for many!

Drs. David and Mary Ford

Authors of Marriage as a Path to Holiness: Lives of Married Saints

Editors of Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage

INTRODUCTION

Congratulations! You’re engaged! What a grace-filled period you have just entered, where you get to prepare for and joyfully anticipate a life as one with your soon-to-be spouse. As the initial excitement of the news begins to fade, though, the focus of your heart may gradually shift from freely and blissfully celebrating your present love to intentionally and methodically crafting the future celebration of your love: the wedding day. Before long, questions about wedding planning will sneak into your everyday conversations, the internet will figure out you are engaged and will bombard you with wedding-related ads, and when you finally decide it is time to begin the gargantuan task of planning, the secret is already out. Everything vies for your attention (and money), and it all seems of the utmost importance! How can we possibly keep God at the center of all this?

At first, we might see through the vanity of the wedding industry veiled in the “love” narrative. Do we really need to list, research, and rate multiple options for the venue, photographer, caterer, cake baker, band/DJ, florist, and stationer to celebrate our love the right way? We do not want the sanctity of the sacrament to be overshadowed by party planning, but at the same time, we want to finally indulge in the wedding dreams of our childhood. Is the answer to a Christ-centered wedding day simply to put all the extraneous elements into the vanity bucket, abandoning every contemporary wedding tradition that fails to carry religious undertones? Not necessarily.

At the Orthodox wedding service, the prescribed Gospel reading is the recounting of Christ’s first miracle at the Wedding at Cana of Galilee (John 2:1–11). Tradition interprets this event as His blessing on weddings and marriage, affirming that they are mysteriously and undeniably good.

So, how do we invite Christ to our wedding, to transform it from the “water” of natural marriage and an earthly celebration into the “wine” of a holy sacrament and a divine celebration? We put Him first. Embrace the exciting challenge of planning a big event with the realization that God is present. Indulge your dreams while asking Him, “Thy will be done.” Give thanks again and again for the gift of marriage, the joy of the process, and the freedom to love.

In the end, making room for Christ does not compromise your wedding dream; rather, you will be inviting beauty, modesty, and glory into the first day of your new life together in a way that will naturally illuminate the hearts of everyone present.

WHAT THIS GUIDE IS NOT

This book does not replace the guidance of the priest, marriage sponsors, and/or other Orthodox faithful in the couple’s life. Rather, it reinforces the importance of those roles while offering a road map through the wedding planning process to help the couple keep Christ at the center.

HOW TO USE THIS WEDDING GUIDE

This guide is organized into two main parts:

PART 1: FIRST STEPS & PART 2: THE DETAILS

We suggest you engage with Part 1 first, together as a couple, at the onset of your planning process. This will help you form the framework of a beautiful celebration as unique as you and your future spouse. Then, move on to Part 2, which provides more specific guidance for various wedding elements. Feel free to bypass any sections that seem irrelevant. Complete the subsections in any order that feels most helpful. An addendum, Part 3: After the Wedding Day, is a short passage dedicated to post-wedding day gratitude and reflections.