A civil wedding needs all of ten minutes, counting the time for people to walk in and out of the room. They’re been turned into longer-than-a-mass she-bangs, with vows (not required) and an explanation by the judge or city councilor on the meaning of matrimony (why in Og’s name don’t you just get a priest, they’re actually trained on how to do that), and rice thrown at the spouses as they leave, and…
Your kids aren’t having First Communion? No problem! Have a Civil First Communion, where the kid gets to dress like an admiral/over-frumpy Cinderella and obtain a metric buttload of gameboy games! Spend twice as much as the people whose kid is actually having his first Holy Wafer and sip of Blessed Wine! (Will you believe that when the laws enacting drinking age came into effect, some towns tried to stop distribution of communion wine to minors? Oh, no need to joke, reality is way weird all by its lonesome)
You don’t want to baptize your kid? No problem! A few months after it’s been born and properly registered, have a Civil Baptism! In some towns you can even have it at City Hall! (No judges have still been stupid enough to have one of these as far as I know, but give them time)
Terry Pratchett has a great imagination. But he is joking - these people are not.
I don’t think so. If you’re atheist, it’s pretty harmless to go along with someone blessing your wedding. Particularly if that someone is your parent.
Saying, “oh, now we let her control our wedding. Next she’ll be moving in and making us baptize & circumcise our kid, completely controlling our lives” is stretching things. Newlyweds can set limits on the control mommy or daddy is going to have on their marriage and how they conduct their lives & their kids’ lives.
At your wedding you want everyone’s blessings. Accepting… nay - actively soliciting everyone’s blessing is not at all the same thing as letting them control your lives. If you don’t want mom’s blessing then don’t invite her. Tell her to go sit in the bar and drink while you take care of your “special day without you controlling me” business.
But they’re atheist. Whether it’s mom’s blessing or a Catholic priest’s blessing or Satan’s blessing, or a Democrat or Republican’s blessing, shouldn’t matter. Should it?
Unless you actually do care who blesses your wedding. For philosophical reasons? Political reasons? Who is it important to you bless your wedding? The state of Nevada?
It was important to us that nobody bless our wedding, or if they did they could keep it to themselves. Celebrating it with us was just fine. The only thing that came close to a blessing is when the county agreed to give us a marriage license after we affirmed that we were not brother and sister and had the $36 license fee.
By “mother’s blessing,” i don’t mean an actual religious ritual, i mean the general goodwill and support implicit in the phrase “I hope we have your blessing.”
That’s quite different from the specifically religious and ritualistic blessing that would be offered by a Catholic priest.