Marriages that have stood the test of time
Pacemaker Press Intl: Suzanne & Ryan Johnston pictured with their children Emily aged 2 and Daniel aged 9 months, near their home in Richhill, Armagh. Photo: Kirth Ferris/Pacemaker Press
Following on from the report on the special service of thanksgiving for marriage in St Mark’s Parish Church, Armagh, LAURA MURPHY meets two of the couples who attended and finds out why their nuptials weren’t just for Valentine’s Day, but for life
PERHAPS it is the time of year, and for once the explosion of red and pink inside high street greeting card shops, and the rows of doe-eyed cuddly toys, their fluffy paws clutching hearts proclaiming ‘I love you’, has actually got to us this February.
Or maybe it’s the recent spate of celebrity break-ups that seems to have dominated the pages of our newspapers, making those of us who are married realise how fortunate we really are to have a happy, and hopefully, rock solid, relationship.
Or possibly Northern Ireland people are just a bunch of old romantics, despite their protestations to the contrary, and the idea of attending a special church service in the same building where you made your vows - be it two years ago or 20 - and give thanks for your marriage sounds rather special and appealing.
Whatever the reason, Co Armagh clergyman John McKegney was delighted at the weekend to discover that a ceremony he organised in his church to facilitate just that “struck a chord with many people - and in ways I didn’t expect.”
The rector conducted a Service of Thanksgiving for Marriage at St Mark’s Parish Church in Armagh on Sunday past, and as part of proceedings, couples who were married at the church, or who now attend it, were given the chance to collectively “give thanks for their marriages and to renew the vows they made”.
We met two such couples, and found out more about their memories of their big day, and how married life had turned out for them.
‘We went to other churches, but they weren’t the same’
FOR Richhill woman Suzanne Johnston and her new husband Ryan, the clergyman who married them on their wedding day, back in 2008, was not just the person conducting their ceremony, but also someone whose own marriage was one they wanted to emulate.
Patrick Barton was the previous curate at St Mark’s Parish Church - he now is based in the north coast area - and was also a friend of Suzanne’s parents, and had a wife and young family himself.
Over three years on, Suzanne and Ryan have started to build their family, and are parents to two-year-old Emily, and little Daniel, nine months.
And the Co Armagh couple not only have very happy memories of their big day in St Mark’s - which took place at Suzanne’s favourite time of year, Christmas - but they still attend it regularly, together with their own families.
“We got married on December 30, 2008,” says Suzanne, now 25.
“We met each other in 2002 we were both working in a local restaurant and we became engaged when we were at university in 2004.”
St Mark’s was the church in which Suzanne had grown up, and Christmas is her “ultimate favourite” time of year, so for her it was easy to choose the location and date of the most important day of her life.
“I always wanted to get married at Christmas and so Hark the Herald Angels Sing was our first hymn,” she says.
“We also had Be Thou My Vision and Lead us Heavenly Father Lead Us to the tune of Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.”
1 Corinthians 13 was one of the reading choices for the newlyweds, as was “another one from Philippians”, and Psalm 121 - “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”
The readers were their minister Patrick and one of Ryan’s brothers - but a friend of theirs who was also supposed to read broke down on the way to the ferry and didn’t make it to the church!
“We had a small wedding,” continues Suzanne.
“We had about 50 guests. We were both the youngest of large families - I have three sisters and a brother and Ryan has three brothers and two sisters. They’re all older than us and married with families of their own, so by the time we got everyone together that was up to 50, and then we had just a few close friends after that.
“I had one of my sisters as bridesmaid as I was her bridesmaid. She wore dark red. Ryan had his best friend Andrew, who we met at university, as his best man.”
Suzanne herself wore a lovely San Patrick gown which had straps and came down in a V shape at the front, and was, in her own words, “quite plain and not overly busy.”
She says: “I got it in Tandragee. It was actually the first one I tried on and I really loved it. Then I tried on a few more and nothing else was the same, so I went back to that first one and kept it.
“It wasn’t an overly cold day. I was hoping for one of those crisp, wintry, frosty days, but I just got a cold and dry day, so that was pretty good - you can’t even guarantee a dry day in the summer these days. There was no rain so it was fine!”
All the fuss and excitement of getting ready that morning passed off without incident - until the moment came for Suzanne and her father to leave the house together alone.
“I was standing with my dad, and you can see the church from our house. Everybody else had left and I started to get a bit nervous.”
She says that she managed to hold it together until the doors of St Mark’s opened “and I started to walk up the aisle, and the tears started tripping me!
“I was so happy and it was wonderful but I was crying all over the place! But there was a good long aisle so I was getting it back together by the time I got to the front.
“Then Ryan totally surprised me, because he’s quite quiet and shy, and all of a sudden he was saying these vows in the loudest, proudest voice you could ever have heard. I looked at him in shock! Then it came to my turn and I still had a sniffly, ‘crying five minutes ago’ voice!”
The couple rounded off their day with a reception at the City Hotel in Armagh. Over three years on, they still enjoy attending St Mark’s, and until they had their children, were active in helping out with the youth club there.
Suzanne jokes that because she and her siblings bring all their brood with them on Sundays, their pew is “more like a nursery”, but whilst you “don’t always hear everything that’s going on”, she feels it’s important just to bring her kids to church “to give them the start in life that I had.”
She adds: “That’s what Ryan and I want for Emily and Daniel. St Mark’s is a really nice church as well - we used to go to other churches in Scotland when we were at university and they were never the same.
“I really love the building and the avenue and everything - it’s just a nice place to be.”
Speaking about Sunday’s service of thanksgiving, Suzanne said she felt it was “absolutely” vital to be appreciative of your marriage.
“Life is so busy and the world is so busy and you’re non-stop from you get up until you go to bed, so it will be nice to take a bit of time out and stop and remember what you’re actually doing in life - to recharge and remember why you started this whole business in the first place.”
She adds that the best piece of advice she has ever been given in terms of sustaining a contented state of marital affairs is to try to “remember that all the little silly things don’t matter.
“Remember where your priorities are and for us I guess, it’s getting those babies looked after.”
‘It is a partnership and you have to work as a team’
“IT was just wonderful, even when I think back now,” says Armagh woman Ann Williamson as she recalls her wedding day in St Mark’s Parish Church, almost 45 years ago.
“I would do it all again.”
She pauses, laughs and adds: “My husband Roy’s shouting here, ‘maybe not to the same fellow!’”
But it’s clear that theirs is a marriage that has stood the test of time, and remains a happy one.
The childhood sweethearts met when Ann was just 15 and Roy was 16, and tied the knot four years later, on July 2, 1967.
Welsh-born Ann, who is now 65, arrived in Northern Ireland as a teenager to live with her family in the Co Tyrone village of Benburb, seven miles from their current home in Armagh city.
Roy was already living here, and the pair met and fell in love.
“My father, he had been in the army and was stationed in Wales, and met my mother,” explains Ann.
“We lived there until I was 15 and then my father took this notion to come back to Ireland.”
Over four decades on, the couple have two sons, 42-year-old Mark and 41-year-old Gareth, and five grandchildren.
And Ann can still recall the summer’s day when she walked down the aisle of the church to which she still belongs, and where her and Roy both worship each and every Sunday. She says their faith is important to them and plays a major part in their relationship.
“We were married by Canon Mortimer, who I think was John McKegney’s uncle,” she reveals, explaining that she and her family had joined St Mark’s when they relocated from Benburb to Armagh in the spring of 1967. Later that year, after she and Roy got married, he also became a member of the church.
“It’s a lovely church,” she says fondly.
“I’m on the vestry and we’ve both been church wardens. The children were christened there and Roy was on the vestry for a number of years. We think a lot of our church.”
Ann says that O Love Divine and Lead Us Heavenly Father Lead Us were the hymns of choice at their ceremony, which was attended by around 100 guests.
Canon Mortimer read the well-known and popular verse from 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
“My father gave me away and my two sisters were bridesmaids. In our family there were three girls and Roy had two brothers. Roy’s oldest brother was the best man and the groomsman was his cousin.
“The bridesmaids wore pale pink. It was lovely. My dress was white,” says Ann, adding that it was created using a needlework technique known as Broderie Anglaise.
“We had a reception in what was the Drumsill House Hotel and my two boys had theirs there too. It’s closed down now - it was a great spot. And then we honeymooned in Edinburgh which was very exotic!”
Ann and Roy enjoy attending St Mark’s every Sunday to this day, and Ann says that being in the building brings back lovely memories of their wedding day.
“I’ve always said that it is a partnership, and you just have to work as a team,” she replies, when I ask her what she feels is the most important piece of advice to take on board in order to sustain a successful marriage.
“We always did everything together. We had our own interests, but we made all the decisions together. Make sure you go to your place of worship and everything falls into place after that.
“Don’t take life too seriously, enjoy it and live for the day. Roy had to have six months of chemotherapy - he has it over now and is doing great.”
Ann says that it is because of Roy’s past health issues that they decided as a couple to take part in the thanksgiving service at St Mark’s on Sunday.
“It was really John McKegney himself who brought it up at a vestry meeting, and talked about inviting people back into the church who were maybe living elsewhere and were married in St Mark’s, and it really developed from there,” she says of the origins of the idea.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
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Friday 25 May 2012
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