It’s Officially Official, We Have Officiants

We will be fortunate enough to have two of the three coolest Catholic priests I’ve ever met say our wedding mass together. (The third, Father Roger, got transferred to another parish when I was in junior high and I have no idea what happened to him.)

My great uncle Augie, a priest from East St. Louis, and Father Dan from St. Pet’s in Glen Ellyn will be con-celebrating our mass this spring.

Because Gavin is only Catholic in theory and occasionally in practice, and I love being a part of the church but can’t stand the uber-conservative kill-joy priests that are omnipresent, having celebrants we could relate to was really important to both of us. We wanted to have a relationship with the person saying our mass so it is wholly a personal occasion.

We know Uncle Augie well, and know that he’s an open-minded and extremely interesting person. Unfortunately, he had a stroke shortly after our engagement. Although he is still able to say mass every day (and swim a mile at the local Y… so he’s in just as good of shape as me!) we wanted to be sure he had someone present to help him since the mass is long and St. James is enormous.

We discovered Father Dan through a series of coincidences, and have genuinely enjoyed going to mass each time he was the officiant. His style reminds us of Ed Norton’s character’s style in Keeping the Faith, although he doesn’t look like him or Gavin wouldn’t have gone along with this plan given my “thing” for the actor. We’ll be meeting up with Father Dan soon to get better acquainted.

We’ve finally managed to assemble the necessary elements to actually have a wedding ceremony – church and priests. Onto music, readings, etc, etc, etc.