Don’t attend a wedding with a cynic. It’ll be no fun at all.

Weddings, like rock salt on a slug, leave some people dried out on the sidewalk. For every attendee weepy and sentimental at the sight of a sacred covenant, another guest is raging against the machine—that botched up, burnt out, old school institution known as the American marriage.

Someone doesn’t become a cynic overnight. It happens in layers, year after year, as one’s life experiences begin to outnumber the perceived myths. Domestic violence, a set of affectionless parents, a personal betrayal, or one’s own moral failures can add a layer. If you combine lots of these over time—or if your own love story recently tanked—then sitting through a wedding ceremony for some people can have all the emotional poignancy of C-SPAN.

Do Christians ever become wedding cynics? You bet. They’re not supposed to, of course. Christian weddings are supposed to feel sacred and rapturous by their very nature (the feeling carries over into the booze-free reception, right?). But for many people, weddings intensify so many feelings—feelings of failure, sadness, skepticism, anger, and even lust—that the experience can leave them empty and depressed. So does that mean that marriage is just a big old sham?

It’s the classic example of perception = reality. One fifty year-old watches a young couple exchange vows and thinks to himself: What a shock they’re going to get—those idealistic fools. Enjoy the party, ‘cause it’s all downhill from here.” Another observes the moment and feels the joy rise in his throat: What a tender beginning. If they only knew how beautifully love grows over time . . .  For some, a wedding represents a relationship’s summit (a very, very expensive summit) before the inevitable decline, and others see it as base camp before the slow, satisfying ascent into purified air. How can marriage really be both? Is the filter we personally bring to marriage really the thing that defines it?

There is good news. If you believe the Bible, then marriage, as an institution, is never in danger. Its mysteries are enduring and fixed; its beauty capable of withstanding great violence from the outside. Our sulking and pouting cannot abuse it, reduce it, offend it, or ruin it. Our infidelities and self-absorption do not redefine it, destroy it, or trivialize it. Your own marriage may fail, but God’s covenant mystery of “becoming one flesh” endures. That may make you whiny and bitter at the next ceremony, but you have no power to change the fundamental mystery of God’s love-prototype.

Two couples have recently sparked my interest in the institution of marriage. I’m guessing neither one has placed their trust in Jesus Christ, but I can’t be sure. My reaction to their ceremonies has made me wonder whether the intrinsic joy of marriage transcends even our sacred Christian ceremonies. The first is a professional couple who decided that rather than spend the equivalent of a small country’s GNP on a big, flashy ceremony that would create hardship for many out-of-towners, opted for one of the most creative wedding ideas I’ve heard in a long time. In a six-week-long “wedding”, the couple road-tripped across the country, visiting all their loved ones along the way with the goal of interviewing someone about marriage in every city. Think of it as the longest pre-marital counseling session ever. Both they—and their hosts—saved the money they would’ve spent on each other at the wedding, while multiplying the quality time spent with family and friends (after all, those receiving lines at most receptions are the relational equivalent of speed dating). At the end of it all? They pulled up to a beach in California and threw a party with their intimate circle of guests before exchanging their final vows. The cost? A small fraction of the average American wedding. (The couple has recorded their journey here).

Another couple created an internet sensation with their joyful, don’t-hold-back wedding entrance. In case you haven’t seen it, check it out. Rather than fussing over the merits of Christian tradition versus creativity, I dare you to watch their joy and still be a cynic.

No matter what we do to marriage, let’s not be relativists and say that it’s all a matter of perception. There is a rapturous joy to what God has designed despite our personal histories.

Now I usually like my essays to have some effective closure, but because I’m feeling a little open-ended, here’s my exit question: Is God—whom the Bible teaches designed marriage in the first place—present in every marriage? Or does he only show up at weddings where he’s invited to the ceremony?