Get Hitched in Mem Church

Calling all senior sweethearts, wannabe sweethearts, and compulsive time-managers: If you’re a Harvard affiliate interested in getting married in Memorial Church at some point in your lifetime, you better start planning now.

“We get a little rush of business around commencement for three or four or five years in the future,” says Rev. Mark D.W. Edington, chaplain to the College and assistant minister in the Memorial Church. “These were people who weren’t even engaged; often they weren’t even seeing someone.”

Marriage-obsessed? Maybe, but perhaps these eager singletons were just looking out for their pocketbooks; booking the church while still enrolled can save students up to $1,200.

And once you’re in, even with a discount, Memorial Church rules weddings with an iron fist.

“One, turn off your cell phone,” says Edington, listing the church’s rules. “Two, look at your hand. Do you see that camera? See it there? Now, look at your purse. Can you put the hand holding the camera into the purse? Can you let it go? Good.”

Don’t think of giving your little niece the job of throwing the rice because, like balloons, birdseed, rose petals, and riding into the church on horseback, rice-throwing is explicitly banned.

Giving up the horseback entrance might be worth it. Famed Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Rev. Peter J. Gomes officiates weddings unless the bride and groom request otherwise.

With or without a diploma, not everyone getting married at Memorial Church uses their Ivy League intellect. Edington tells of a groom who decided to get his hair cut mere minutes before the start of the ceremony. But that’s not the all-time best wedding blooper. According to Edington, that honor belongs to “the bride who asked, just before the wedding began, whether the best man could stand in for the groom—because the groom ‘isn’t feeling well today.’ Answer: very, very bad idea.”