Michael Eric Rydberg

Welcome everyone to the Marriage ceremony of Matt Rocha and Caithin Chander. My name is Michael Rydberg, deacon of the First Congregational Church in Marshfield and Minister of The American Marriage Ministries and I am honored to join this couple in holy matrimony.

I have known Caithlin for many years now. She was a confirmation and Sunday School student of mine way back in 2006 when she was just a 9th grader. I had all of my students pick a favorite Bible verse for their Confirmation and Cait chose Matthew 4:16. “The people living in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” This seems to me to be a very appropriate verse for today. In these Covid, Pandemic days, don’t we all feel like a people living in a land of darkness? And yet here we are celebrating the union of these two love birds. Love is still alive and well. Today it feels like a light has dawned on those of us who have been walking in darkness for too long.

I have only just met Matthew, but I like him already. This man is a romantic. Before he met Caithlin his facebook page nothing but sports. But once he met Caithlin everything changed. All of his posts were about this wonderful, beautiful girl he met.

I was surprised to learn that they met online on a dating site. That for 6 months they never met or even spoke, they just daily texted each other on this site. They clearly liked each other’s online persona but were suspicious that they might be being “Catfished.” That maybe this person on the other end was too good to be true. When they finally met for real, at a TGI Friday’s in Plymouth, carefully chaperoned by Cait’s best friend ______, Caithlin knew that this was real…this was the one! Matt didn’t need much more convincing either.

He took his time and eventually hatched a marriage proposal plan. His plan involved a knock off of Megan Markal’s ring, a cruise and a trip to the Vatican where he would take a knee. And it’s a good thing he took his parents with him because he needed his mom to smuggle to ring through the metal detectors at the Vatican without Cait finding out.

Ignoring his nervous panic, Matt got down on his knee, In front of hundreds of tourists and pilgirms and asked Caithlin to be his wife. Stunned and shocked Caith remembers the applause of hundreds of tourists but she doesn’t remember saying “Yes.”

But apparently she agreed, because here we are.

Matthew, Caithlin, I believe in destiny. Matthew, it humbles me to know that you, were created for Caithlin. And Caithlin, I am humbled to know that you were created for Matt. And I am in awe as I see God’s plan coming together in your union.

Marriage was invented my God, vouched for by Jesus and it is sustained by the Holy Spirit. Acknowledging this let us begin the ceremony with prayer: