Till Death Us Don’t Part

Hello, hello, and welcome to T.E.A. Time with Tayvin Bayless. If you’re joining me for the first time, welcome. I hope you find something useful here. And if you’re returning, welcome back. It’s good to have you with me again.

Have you ever been to a wedding? Was it a small, quiet ceremony, or the kind of event that required enough food to feed a small country?

Today was my brother-in-law’s wedding, and it got me thinking about how many expressions English has for this one very specific event.

That brings me to the first phrase for today: tie the knot. Tie the knot.

Literally, a knot is made by looping and pulling together something like rope, string, or ribbon. Once the knot is tight, the two parts are held together. You can probably see why that became an image for marriage. Two people join their lives and become connected.

In English, this is an incredibly common way to refer to getting married. Use context to determine whether this is talking about rope or ritual.

The phrase has been connected with marriage for centuries, although its exact origin is not as neat as some explanations make it sound. Knots have been used as symbols of bonds, promises, and marriage in several traditions. What we can say confidently is that English speakers eventually began using tie the knot as a colorful way of saying get married.

Here’s a quick example: after months of planning, my brother-in-law and his fiancee finally tied the knot today.

But that is not the only expression we use. We might also say that they got hitched.

To hitch something means to fasten or connect it to something else. You might hitch a trailer to a truck or hitch a horse to a wagon. By the 1800s, Americans were also using hitch to talk about marriage. If someone says, “We’re getting hitched next month,” they mean, “We’re getting married next month.” It is casual and playful. You probably would not print it on a formal wedding invitation, but maybe on an informal one like the one my wife and I sent out to a select few close friends and family. I thought they were pretty hilarious, but maybe that’s a story for another day.

The third expression is walk down the aisle. An aisle is the path between rows of seats in a church, theater, airplane, or store. In many wedding traditions, the bride walks down the center aisle as part of the ceremony. Because of that familiar image, walking down the aisle can also mean getting married.

Neither my brother-in-law nor his new wife literally walked down an aisle during their temple ceremony. That is not how the ceremony is structured in our religious tradition. But English speakers might still say that he and his wife walked down the aisle today because the expression can refer to marriage more generally.

Tie the knot. Get hitched. Walk down the aisle. English has plenty of ways to describe the moment a marriage begins.

Keep those phrases in mind because today’s story is about that moment, as well as the many less glamorous moments that come after it.

It’s been a month of anticipation, but the big day finally arrived. It was a long one, but a good one. Really, it has been a long week. Weddings are impressive in their capacity to turn one important event into fifteen smaller events, each with its own schedule, supplies, and opportunities for something to go wrong.

My mother-in-law prepared the luncheon and made desserts for the reception. That takes a lot of work. Emma and her sisters spent time earlier in the week helping with the preparation. By the time the bride and groom were ready to tie the knot, other members of the family had already spent days cooking, planning, decorating, carrying things, and checking lists.

The wedding ceremony took place in the morning. Emma and I, along with our families, are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In our religious tradition, it is common for the main marriage ceremony to take place inside a temple.

Temples are sacred buildings where we participate in some of the most important ceremonies of our faith. Once a temple has been dedicated, prepared members of the Church can enter to worship and participate in those ceremonies.

A temple marriage takes place in what we call a sealing room. The room at this particular temple can hold about 60 people. That may sound like a large group until you start making a guest list for two people’s immediate and extended families, as well as their friends. Then those 60 slots fill up far too fast.

Because space is limited, the couple usually invites close family members and friends who are able to attend the temple ceremony. Afterward, there is often a luncheon that includes those guests as well as other close friends and family members who could not enter the temple. Later, many couples hold a larger reception where anyone who wants to celebrate with them can come.

That is the pattern my brother-in-law and his wife followed.

Everything turned out wonderfully. Many people came to support them. The locations for both the ceremony and the reception were beautiful. The food my mother-in-law had worked so hard to prepare was delicious, and the desserts were great too.

A wedding day should feel special, and I think theirs did.

It was also hectic. Those two things can exist at the same time. A day can be beautiful and stressful. Joyful and exhausting. Meaningful and held together by a group of increasingly tired relatives carrying folding chairs.

Now that it is over, I feel a complicated mixture of satisfaction, happiness, relief, and exhaustion. Mostly exhaustion, if I am being honest.

The suits and dresses, the temple, the photographs, and all the people gathered together reminded me of my own wedding five and a half years ago. Emma and I were also married in a temple. Our families gathered to support us. We took photographs, ate together, and celebrated the beginning of our marriage. In those ways it was very similar to today’s event.

In other ways, it was very different.

Emma and I got married while restrictions on group gatherings from the COVID-19 pandemic were still lingering. Because of that, far fewer people attended our wedding. We also decided not to hold the reception on the same day. We had the ceremony and a luncheon, then saved the larger reception for a later date when more people could attend.

There were some real benefits to that arrangement. We finished everything around one o’clock in the afternoon and left for the short local honeymoon we had planned. We were married, fed, photographed, and on our way by early afternoon. Efficient enough that we stopped by a bookstore to peruse the shelves because we arrived at our hotel before check-in.

Today’s wedding was an all-day affair. The ceremony began at 9:30 in the morning, but everyone had to get dressed and ready before that. The reception did not end until nine at night, but of course the family still had cleanup afterward.

I left the reception a little early so I could put Eliana to bed. Emma stayed with her family to finish the work.

Leaving the reception to handle a baby’s bedtime was an interesting contrast. A picture of what comes after the wedding day.

One marriage was just beginning. My own marriage was five and a half years in. One was filled with expensive dresses, cake, high-quality photography, and dancing that went on past sundown. The other is filled with pajamas, dirty diapers, bottles, bedtime routines, and deciding which parent needs to be where.

There was nothing ceremonial about taking Eliana to bed. Just a tired baby who did not particularly care that her uncle had gotten married. She had a schedule, and she expected us to respect it.

That is marriage too. One person puts the baby to bed. The other helps clean up after a family event. You divide the work. You adjust the plan. You do the ordinary things that need to be done.

There’s another phrase commonly connected with marriage: till death do us part.

This phrase appears in traditional wedding vows used by many Christians. It means that the couple promises to remain married for the rest of their mortal lives, until death separates them.

The wording has changed over time. In the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, the line was “till death us depart.” At the time, depart could mean to separate two things. In the 1662 revision, the wording became “till death us do part.” Eventually, many English speakers rearranged it into the version that now sounds most familiar: “till death do us part.”

That phrase is not part of our temple marriage ceremony because it does not describe what we believe marriage can become.

In our faith, the ceremony is called a sealing. To seal something means to bind it or secure it. During a temple sealing, a husband and wife make sacred commitments to each other and to God. We believe that, if we remain faithful to those commitments, the relationship does not have to end at death. The marriage can continue for eternity.

I believe that literally, and it fills me with so much joy that Emma and I can remain together forever.

But marriage is not the only relationship we believe can continue. Our relationships with parents, children, siblings, and other family members can also extend beyond death. When I enter the temple, as I did today, I think about Emma, Eliana, my mom and grandparents, my in-laws, and the many other people, both family and friends, who have helped shape my life.

My brother-in-law’s wedding brought many of those people together in one place. They came to witness the ceremony, prepare food, take photographs, clean up, watch children, and celebrate. They all played different roles, but they were there because relationships matter.

I know that not everyone listening shares my beliefs about what happens after death.

But whether you believe you will see the people you love in another life or not, relationships already extend beyond individual moments. The people around you change you. They teach you. They influence the way you think, the choices you make, and the person you become.

A wedding lasts for one day. The preparations might consume a week, and the photographs might survive for generations. But the real relationship is built afterward, through thousands of ordinary choices on regular days.

So here’s something to think about. Who has helped shape the person you are? It might be your spouse, a parent, a sibling, a friend, or someone else entirely. Think about one ordinary way that person has shown up for you. Then, when the opportunity comes, find an ordinary way to show up for them.

Today, my brother-in-law and his wife tied the knot. They got hitched. And figuratively, though not literally, they walked down the aisle.

The ceremony lasted part of a morning, and the celebration lasted most of the day.

But the thing that will stick with me is the picture I saw of marriage across two distinct stages. One relationship beginning with a sacred ceremony. Another continuing through a very ordinary bedtime.

The aisle only takes a few seconds to walk down. The relationship fills the years that follow.

And with that, my cup is empty. Thanks for joining me for T.E.A. Time. Until the next pot.