Wedding Ceremony Mixes Best Of East And West

Peter Leckerling, the son of Jon and Nancy Leckerling of Madison, married Yaqing Grace Zhang, the daughter of Li Zhenwen and Zhang Wei, of Shanghai, China on June 11, 2011 at the Madison Beach Club.

The Rev. Nancy Leckerling, the groom's mother and a minister in the United Church of Christ, officiated at the ceremony.

"It was the highlight of my twenty-two-year ministerial career," Rev. Leckerling said, adding that the bride and groom blended Eastern and Western traditions into their ceremony and the reception afterwards, both held at the Beach Club.

During the ceremony the couple lit a  unity candle beside a wreath made of gardenias, white roses, and white hydrangeas in honor of deceased family members and friends.  "This is a family tradition to have this wreath at weddings," Rev. Leckerling said. 

A wooden arch was made and installed at the Beach Club for the ceremony. "The week after the wedding, it was brought to our Madison home and installed in our garden to serve as a reminder of Peter and Grace's happy day!"

Below is the Reflection delivered by Rev. Leckerling during the ceremony:

"The readings we heard today were thoughtfully chosen by Yaqing and Peter. It’s not surprising that the Chinese readings were about friendship because friendship was the bedrock of Yaqing and Peter’s relationship going back 4 ½ years. And it’s no surprise that they chose music from West Side Story, a tale of an inter-cultural romance, because Yaqing and Peter’s story is sort of a contemporary West Side Story. I even named the i-Movie I made about their lives East Side Story because their story began in the Far East, in Shanghai.

The reading from the Hebrew Scriptures Yaqing and Peter chose is from the sweet little book of Ruth, a story about friendship, fidelity and love, written in the 5^th century BC. The stole I’m wearing today depicts the story in pictures. The book of Ruth was written during the period when the Israelites were returning from the Exile in Babylon. The purpose of the book was to create a sympathetic feeling toward foreigners who put themselves under the protection of Israel’s God. The book was also intended to counteract the harsh decrees of Israelite governors Ezra and Nehemiah, which required Hebrew men to divorce their foreign wives and marry only within the Israelite community.

The theme of Ruth is that, no matter where we come from or who we are, we are all children of the same God and out of our mixed unions can come amazing gifts. Indeed, when the foreigner Ruth, from Moab, married Boaz, an Israelite, the child born of their union, Obed, was the grandfather of King David and the ancestor of Jesus.

Fast forward 2500 years to 2011, where we have two of God’s children, Yaqing and Peter, from vastly different parts of the planet, coming together and reminding us what a small world it is in which we live. Peter and Yaqing also remind us of the strength our country derives from the mosaic of its people, who flowed into the U.S. from all parts of Europe and Asia during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Yaqing and Peter’s love transcends race, religion and address.

Together, they have taught Jon and me to expand our hearts and minds, to learn Chinese and to eat more Chinese food! Peter and Yaqing join a family with Sudanese brothers and one whose children have recently married a Brazilian woman and a man born of Vietnamese parents. We proudly say our family is starting to look like a mini-United Nations.

Yaqing and Peter are blessed with gifts and talents to share with each other and the world. I always tell them they are the “best” China and the U.S. have to offer. That they have found one another and chosen one another is indeed a gift. Their marriage today is affirmation that no matter where we are from, we are God’s children and that great gifts can arise from our coming together. May your union today, Peter and Yaqing, be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership of love, caring, respect, open communication, faithfulness, honesty and trust. Amen."