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The Rev. Dr. Sam Wells
I am delighted that you are considering holding your wedding ceremony
at Duke Chapel. Those who built Duke University’s West
Campus gave the University a wonderful place in which students,
faculty and staff could worship God and gather for significant
moments in the University’s life as well as their own.
The purpose of the Chapel is to keep the heart of the University
listening to the heart of God. By choosing to get married at
Duke Chapel, you are seeking to enact this most intimate moment
of your lives in a place where people gather in large numbers
to listen to the heart of God. May you hear his voice, know his
blessing and keep close to his heart throughout your lives together.
Your Marriage
A marriage is a contract between two people. By choosing to hold
the ceremony in a public building and inviting guests you are recognizing
both that your new life affects the lives of many other people
and that you will need their support if you are to sustain your
life together. Everything about the ceremony testifies to the significance
of the choice you are making and the roles that God, family, friends
and one another will play in supporting your marriage amid the
sometimes stormy seas of changing emotions, fragile health, family
pressures, profound temptations and economic uncertainty. The towering
stone of Duke Chapel affirms not so much our desire to help you
put on a fairytale wedding as our prayer that your marriage be
grounded on solid rock.
Your Wedding Day
This booklet gives you advice, guidelines and policies to help
you plan your wedding at Duke Chapel. Some of the policies are
quite strict. This is out of respect for three parties your wedding
may deeply affect.
(1) Others who inhabit the West Campus of Duke University. The
campus is a place of life and activity, and often there are all
sorts of planned and impromptu events taking place there: your
wedding may not be the only one. This particularly affects parking,
and we cannot guarantee convenient guest parking beyond the wedding
party itself.
(2) Others who may have very significant events taking place at
Duke Chapel that
day. Most of our concerns about timings (e.g. in relation to flowers
and
photographs) are to ensure that not only you have a wonderful day,
but that
others being married in the Chapel on the same day do so as well.
(3) Others who worship at Duke Chapel, and look to the Chapel
as a place of
holiness, dignity, and leadership in Christian liturgy and life.
Our concerns
about music and to some extent about photographs, flowers and the
general ‘feel’ of the event derive from our desire that everything
that happens at Duke
Chapel may glorify God and be in keeping with the dignity, beauty
and high
reputation of the building and its traditions.
Please read all Chapel policies before making a reservation. Once
the Wedding Reservation Form and Contract is completed and returned
to the Chapel along with payment of the deposit due, it becomes
a binding contract of acceptance to the terms and conditions noted
in the Chapel policies.
Your Life Together
Once again we wish you well for your wedding day and your life
together. The best advice I can offer is that it's not love that
teaches you what marriage means - it's marriage that teaches you
what love means. I pray that you may be blessed with the gifts
you need to make your life together a blessing to yourselves and
others.
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