Matthew & Jana leaving Church at the end of their Marriage Service © Sybille Yates
On Saturday 14th August, I conducted my first wedding for nearly a year when Matthew, a Scotsman, married Jana, a Slovak. The wedding took place at St. Clement’s Church in the presence of about forty friends and family – a wonderful mix of nationalities including Scottish, English, American, Slovak, Czech, German and Japanese.
I first met Matthew in June 2009 when he began worshipping with us at St. Clement’s. He had been living in Prague for nearly a year before he found the Church, teaching English in a Czech school. He had previously spent several years in the British Army seeing service in the Gulf and in Northern Ireland. I was thrilled when he approached me at the beginning of this year saying he had met Jana and they wished me to marry them at St. Clement’s.
Jana comes from near Košice in the far eastern part of Slovakia. However, she has lived in Prague for a number of years and works as an air stewardess for a Japanese airline, regularly flying between Central Europe and Japan. As well as speaking fluent English, she also is reasonably conversant in Japanese!
All the Scots in their kilts including the Czech bagpiper on the far right © Ricky Yates
As a good Scotsman, Matthew wore his kilt for the occasion as did his best man John, his brother Kim who acted as usher, and his friend Stewart who is a Chaplain in the army and who read one of the Bible readings. Matthew also had found a Czech who could play the bagpipes and who piped Jana into Church, accompanied by her parents and then piped the newly married couple out of Church at the end of the service.
The service was followed by a buffet reception held at Restaurant Kabinet in the suburb of Žižkov. As well as good food and drink, we were also treated to some impromptu musical entertainment by the best man on guitar, his wife on the fiddle and an adult pupil of Matthew on the mandolin.
The wedding party outside St. Clement's Church © Sybille Yates
That was really nice to read! I wish the couple all the happiness in the world! The last picture is great. It must be a very nice feeling to get a lovely couple started on the right road….getting married in St. Clement’s! Why do men who wear kilts just look SO cool?
Karin on Paros
Hi Karin
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. It is one of the priviledges of my job that you get to share in what sociologists call people’s ‘major life events’! Knowing the couple as I do, it was a real priviledge to conduct their wedding. It was relatively small scale and without great sums of money being spent and that sort of wedding is always far nicer than the very large, grand variety.
With regard to your last question, as I’m male and English, I think I’d better pass on that one, Perhaps other female readers of my blog can suggest an answer!
[…] I conducted my second wedding of the year when Jan, a Czech, married Allison, an American. Like my Scottish – Slovak wedding of three weeks earlier, Jan & Allison’s wedding took place in St. Clement’s Church […]