Jumping Through Hoops for a Wedding

I'm not on first name terms with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed, I'm not on any sort of terms with him. But it turns out that I need to ask him a favor. Eric and I are interested in marrying in the chapel of my Cambridge college, Magdalene (see picture of the Pepys Library below). In order to do so, we will need to obtain a Special License from the Archbish (also pictured).

The application form for the license arrived in the mail at the weekend. The Church of England is apparently not sufficiently up-to-date to have a downloadable option, or even an e-mailable one. There's something rather quaint about this, although it reinforces the impression that the Anglican communion is not keeping up with the times.

As part of my research on the License, I took a look at the Archbishop's website. The See (or bishopric) of Canterbury was founded in 597 by St Augustine. The Archbish is considered first among equals in the worldwide Anglican church (which includes the Episcopalian church in the U.S.A., although there is currently a significant difference of opinion between Anglican views about openly gay clergy and the position of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church).

But the Special License is not the only hurdle we will have to overcome to marry in the U.K. In an amusing reverse take on the 1990 movie Green Card, Eric will need to obtain a marriage visa in order to enter the U.K. for the wedding. He has 10 pages of probing immigration questions to answer.

Figuring out the details of the wedding is a great distraction from the daily trawl through job boards, networking e-mails and job applications. And I have to confess that there is certain satisfaction in the ultimate irony of our wedding...the fact that a union between a Brit & American is likely to occur on the eve of the 234th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.