(How we were tossed out of Notre Dame cathedral and into the snow.)
When we decided to get married, I knew there was only one person to perform the ceremony. My long-time friend Chuck, a social services administrator who was also an ordained Presbyterian minister, had married most of his large circle of friends, and almost all of their children. There was no question: only Chuck would do.
Chuck would be happy to perform the marriage. Just name the date. Anytime other than the last three weeks in February, when he would be skiing in France. Unless, of course, we wanted to join him in France and be married there…
How can you turn down an offer like that? To be married in Paris! We projected the cost and determined that to fly to Paris and stay for ten days would probably cost less than what we would spend on the entire production here: renting a site, inviting all the friends, relatives, in-laws and ex-in-laws, and providing dinners, Champagne and lodgings for dozens of people.
So it would be Paris. But when? Chuck was going skiing in the French Alps and would be in Paris only on February 13, 14 and 15. Stupidly (not realizing the impossibility of obtaining dinner reservations at a decent restaurant on February 14), I told him, “Hey: there’s no question. If those are our only choices, it has to be Valentine’s Day.”
The next question was where to do the ceremony. I hadn’t been to Europe in years, but I had spent several weeks in Paris on a couple of occasions. I knew the centre ville. There is a little park right on the point of the Isle de la Cité where I used to dangle my legs over the rock parapet late at night after dinner and toss my cigarettes into the Seine to see whether they would flow to the left or the right, and, being alone, look jealously at the Parisian lovers alongside me and above me on the quais. There are the Luxembourg Gardens, where a starving Hemingway claimed to catch pigeons for dinner when the police weren’t looking.
Both were ideal locations–in the summer or fall. But in February there are no flowers in the Luxembourg Gardens, the city’s fountains are frozen solid and the chill factor on the point of Cité approaches 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
My indoor location preferences were Ste. Chapelle, a marvellous little jewel-box chapel from the 13th Century, St. Severin, an ancient stone church directly across the Seine from Notre Dame, with modern, abstract, stained-glass windows, and, of course, Notre Dame de Paris.
Chuck’s Parisian friends Georges and Christine (who were to be the witnesses at our wedding), started calling around. They couldn’t reach St. Severin. Ste. Chapelle reported that we could have the wedding there, but they wouldn’t close the chapel for us. We would have to put up with tourists and their cameras. But the priest who answered the phone at Notre Dame gave us the green light.
Unfortunately, Christine forgot to ask his name.
The six of us showed up at Notre Dame at 7:00 p.m.: Marianne, my soon-to-be-step-daughter Kristi, myself, Chuck, Georges and Christine. Marianne had a bouquet of roses courtesy of Christine. We took pictures outside the cathedral: Chuck, Kristi, Marianne and her roses, and me.
Inside the cathedral, Chuck looked for an empty side chapel. He found one which held a floor lamp. He opened the wrought-iron gate, the rest of us filed in, and Chuck began the ceremony. As I remember, he had reached the point at which he said, “Kristin has written something special she would like to read at this joyous occasion.” And then the troubles began.
Someone on the other side of the wrought-iron gate complained. A crowd gathered. This was a sacrilege and we shouldn’t be here. Chuck, who stood about six-foot-four, but who was* generally the most accommodating of persons, summoned up his deepest voice to intone, “This is a solemn occasion. Would you please leave us in peace? We won’t be long.”
Someone in the crowd summoned a church official, who arrived accompanied by a pair of Notre Dame policemen. Who would imagine that a cathedral would have its own police force? This is highly unusual, the official kept repeating. Highly unusual.
Chuck was arguing that such a sacred rite was not sacrilegious to the cathedral.
Marianne was making that groaning noise that means, “how did I let myself get into this?”
Kristi was rolling her eyes as only a ten-year-old girl can.
Christine, who should have been explaining that she had obtained permission, was silent, hiding behind her husband.
I was thinking, just skip the ceremony, Chuck. Say the pronouncement and let’s get out of here.
“I have many friends in the reformed churches,” the official was saying. “I would never try to perform a Catholic ceremony in one of their churches. This is highly unusual. Highly unusual.”
With Chuck unwilling to give up the personalized ceremony he had written and the church official equally determined to prevent the ceremony from proceeding, it soon became obvious that we would not be married in Notre Dame. We were unceremoniously escorted out. Chuck later had his ceremony back in our apartment, where the wedding music playing on the radio was from Bizet’s Carmen: “If you don’t love me, I love you. And if I love you, watch out!”
People say to us, “You were married in Paris? On Valentine’s Day? How romantic!”
Marianne makes that same little groaning noise. Kristi, now almost 30, rolls her eyes. I say, “Well…there’s a story goes with that.”
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* Chuck died of pancreatic cancer in 2005. Just like Chuck, who always looked 20 years younger than his real age, he lost not a single hair during his chemotherapy. He had performed more than 400 marriage ceremonies during his long career (he didn’t start counting until he’d been at it for several years, and so could never give an exact count.) His very last ceremony was for my beautiful step-daughter, Kristi. I cried all the way through his memorial service. Requiescat in pace, my great and good friend.