{"id":264,"date":"2008-01-14T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/double-duty"},"modified":"2017-01-05T16:44:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T16:44:14","slug":"double-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/double-duty.html","title":{"rendered":"Double duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Erinswedding1_2\"<\/a>Am I the father of the bride or the officiating minister? Well, this past Saturday I was both.<\/p>\n

It has been my honor and privilege to lead all three of my children and their future spouses through premarital counseling and to officiate at their weddings. But I was emotionally unprepared for this third one. With my two sons I could somewhat concentrate on the role of minister. Sure, I was affected by seeing my tall, handsome sons standing there, but I was pretty much doing and saying what I always do and say at the many weddings I’ve performed.<\/p>\n

With my daughter, Erin, I had to do and say something I’ve never done and said before. I had to escort her down that long aisle and answer the question: “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”<\/p>\n

I answered, “Her mother and I.”<\/p>\n

\"Erinswedding5\"<\/a> As I put her hand into Abbott’s, instead of taking a seat next to my wife as is the custom, I walked onto the platform and became the minister. Believe me when I say that it wasn’t an easy transtition for me.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful ceremony and everything came off wonderfully. At the end I made the presentation.<\/p>\n

“It is my honor to now present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Abbott Mitchell!”<\/p>\n

\"Erinswedding4_2\"<\/a> After they and the wedding party moved down the aisle I reverted back to my role as father and husband to escort my dear wife. I still had my emotions in check.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until the reception that I felt the self-control on my emotion slip. As I stood with an open umbrella over my Erin, I said to her and to Abbott,<\/p>\n

\"Erinswedding2\"<\/a> “This umbrella symbolically represents my God-given authority and protection over my daughter. She has been mine. I now relinquish this spot to you, Abbott. She is yours and the role is now yours too. May God bless you both.”<\/p>\n\"Erinswedding3\"<\/a>\n

And so I finished my day of double duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Am I the father of the bride or the officiating minister? Well, this past Saturday I was both. It has been my honor and privilege to lead all three of my children and their future spouses through premarital counseling and to officiate at their weddings. But I was emotionally unprepared for this third one. With<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5313,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/5313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}