Our daughter (age 27) grew up in the Presbyterian church. She wasn’t interested in church at all during college but when she moved to Philly for grad school she and her fiance (now husband) started attending a Presbyterian church there and she became a deacon. When they started wedding planning they insisted that the wedding be at the church, which in turn drove the selection of the reception venue because we wanted it to be close by the church. It also drove decisions about time of day and time of year because the sanctuary doesn’t have air conditioning and church policy requires wedding photographers to use only existing lighting during the ceremony.
The church staff really went above and beyond because they were so excited that “one of our deacons” was getting married. The head deacon was a retired event planner and he hovered around consulting with our planner and the church’s wedding coordinator and personally decided the wedding dress looked too wrinkled and he would take over steaming it. Then he decided the steamer wasn’t getting the job done and after consulting with the bride (who made the dress) he brought out an ironing board and iron and very carefully ironed the skirt and train!
