This is the sense of entitlement that I see in weddings nowadays. These folks arrive late with a "We're the stars of the show" attitude. They know they have reservation for the use of the church and have paid for the services of the church. They somehow think this entitles them to arrive at their own sweet time and make everyone else wait.
Funny Entrance and Seating
Forty minutes after the scheduled wedding call time, the members of the entourage felt they were good and ready. Finally complete, they all formed in line for the processional.
The mother-butler asked me to re-announce the introduction. I told them I already did that, and won't be doing it again. So I just asked the choir through the microphone to replay the wedding processional march music. The music played and the now complete entourage moved on.
After they were finally ushered to their seats, the couple and their parents sat while the others remained standing. Then I gave the entrance remarks.
Now, the fun begins, I thought. I knew Fr. Raul isn't coming back immediately, if at all. So I sat in my chair. The others remained standing. Everybody was expecting the wedding mass to begin, but there was no priest.
Soon almost everybody was looking at each other, with the "hey, what's next?" smiling look on their faces. After a few more minutes, I saw folks glancing at me with the "hey dude, let's get on with it!" stern look. But through all these, I was smiling inside and just relaxed in my seat.
I can see the growing impatience especially from the primary sponsors, the godparents. With their legs getting tired, they sat, one by one. They're finally realizing the wait would be indefinite.
A Shortened Wedding Mass
After ten minutes, the priest finally reappeared. It was now a good fifty minutes after the wedding call time. Everybody in the wedding entourage breathe a sigh of relief. I was expecting Fr. Raul to give them an early scathing sermon about punctuality. But he didn't.
Probably to compensate for the long delay that had occurred, Fr. Raul skipped the homily after the gospel. He skipped the Profession of the Faith. He also skipped the final blessings although he gave the solemn blessing for the couple.
It's Okay to be Late?
I'd hate to say that the priest was throwing tantrums, but he was pissed. He did not wait for the processional march, left and then reappeared much later.
By letting everybody else to wait for him, what does that tell everybody? That it is okay to be late? After all, the bride and the bridesmaids were all late in arriving. And then they find that the priest wasn't there yet (the priest was actually earlier than them). Then they find the priest appearing much much later.
Doesn't that tell them that even they were late, the priest was much worse? And that their late arrival time was actually "just right in time"?
Lessons Learned
The priest probably had an initial intention of "teaching them (the entourage) a lesson" by returning late. But when I asked the mother-butlers after the wedding if the entourage knew that the priest was angry, they said "probably not". So if they didn't know, what's the whole point of the deliberate delay on the priest's part? The wedding entourage just wouldn't know that it was their fault.
So, no lesson was learned if those who should've learned it weren't even aware of it. What only resulted was more unnecessary delay for everybody.
