"Rain on Your Wedding Day" was written by Rev. John Killinger for the wedding of Christa Oliver and John Purdum Jr. in Warrenton, Virginia, on September 26, 2009.  Christa and John had planned a beautiful wedding in the lovely gardens of an antebellum home called Awlyngton Manor. When the guests were assembled, Christa was to arrive with her dad in an open, horsedrawn carriage  while a string quartet played Mozart and everybody oohed and ahhed.  Unfortunately––and uncharacteristically at that time of the year––rain came down in buckets all day, and the service had to be moved to a low-ceilinged, less-than-elegant lean-to attached to the old house.  Christa was glum.  Her romantic imagination had lived for months on the image of that outdoor wedding.  The minister sought in vain on the Internet for some poem or statement about rain that would lighten her mood at the wedding.  Finding none, he wrote this one, and now offers it here with best wishes for anybody else to use in a similar situation. 

So it rained on your wedding day?
Get over it.
Our planet is 7/10s water.
If it weren't, 
we probably wouldn't be here.
Our bodies are 98% water. 
If they weren't,
we'd be toast.
When the Bible says that the rain falls
on the just and the unjust alike,
it is saying how lucky the unjust are,
because in the arid climate of the Middle East
rain is almost always in short supply.
Water is essential to life.
We drink it to survive,
we bathe in it for cleanliness,
and we baptize our children in it
as a sign of God's eternal blessing
on them and on ourselves.
So when it rains on your wedding day
it doesn't mean you've had bad luck
or should have waited for a sunny day.
It means you are being married
under the surest sign of divine favor
and that your love for the person you marry
is being symbolically sprinkled from on high
to remind you that your entire life
is a precious gift from heaven
which you are about to share
with somebody very special to you
just as he is about to share his life with you.
So praise God, from whom all blessings flow
––or, if you prefer, from whom all flowings bless.

–– John Killinger