Wedding Bells Are Music to Pastor’s Ears

ESCONDIDO — It is not the most orthodox of churches. Situated in rented space on the second floor of a shopping center on the edge of town, the Rev. T.G. Gray’s chapel has no bells, no crucifixes, no pews. It used to be a tanning salon.

There is one stained-glass window, but the organ music is taped. White folding chairs provide seating for a mere 25 worshipers and Venetian blinds and wall-to-wall carpeting round out the decor. Downstairs, women get manicures at Debbie’s Exotic Nail Design while other folks lunch at the Beatnik Coffee House.

Mainstream men of God might frown on such a set-up. But then, the Rev. Theodore Gilbert Gray is no ordinary preacher. His is a marrying ministry, dedicated first and foremost to marrying just about anybody, just about any place.

Since embarking on his nuptial mission in 1983, the strapping, silver-haired Gray has helped 367 couples say “I do,” making his perhaps the busiest wedding chapel west of Las Vegas. In December and June--the most popular marriage months--he presides over four, even five ceremonies in a single afternoon.

He has married grandparents and pregnant adolescents and once hitched two couples at once. His brides and grooms have been wedded not only in tuxedos and long white gowns, but also in blue jeans and cowboy boots.

With many modern couples paying upwards of $6,000 for a wedding, most would agree that Gray’s price is right. For $40 the reverend offers a bare-bones 12-minute ceremony on weekdays between 1 and 5 p.m. at one of his two chapels--the makeshift shopping center church or a converted mobile home parked on his 2.5-acre ranch in Valley Center.

Tack onto that the official $41 fee for a marriage license and Gray’s $10 charge for notarizing the certificate and most newlyweds will still have enough cash left over for some bubbly. For a few frills--a weekend ceremony, lots of guests, a special location--Gray’s price goes up. Still, the most he has ever charged is $120.

A retired schoolteacher, Gray, 61, says his thriving wedding business helps supplement his modest pension. But there’s more to it than that.

“I don’t have a congregation, so for me, these weddings are a way of serving the Lord,” said Gray, who was “saved” in 1971. Standing at the altar while couples swap vows--be they starry-eyed rookies or grizzled, three-time marriage veterans--is also a “spiritual high” of sorts, he said.

“I still get nervous and choked up at every single one,” said Gray, an attractive, energetic man with a deep tan and a wide smile. “I could never do funerals. I’d go to pieces.”

Gray, whose business cards promise “Weddings: Religious, Dignified, Inexpensive,” is one of four ordained ministers in North County also certified to issue marriage licenses. His service is advertised in the Yellow Pages, newspaper classified sections and on a sign affixed to the bumper of his silver black-top Cadillac.

Gray says his chapel caters to those who can’t afford a fancy big-time church wedding but “don’t want to wait in line and have a 30-second experience at the county courthouse, either.”

“A lot of churches won’t marry you unless you’re a member of the congregation or agree to go through months of counseling with a minister,” Gray said. “My clients don’t want that, but they’ve got a little bit of God here (in their heart) and want a nice little ceremony.”

While Gray’s requirements for couples aiming to pronounce themselves husband and wife are hardly as stiff as those of, say, the Catholic Church, the reverend insists he won’t marry just anyone.

Drunks will not receive his blessing and he won’t help illegal aliens tie the knot merely to obtain resident status. He doesn’t do jailhouse weddings--”It makes me uncomfortable”--and he turned down an Encinitas couple who wanted to get hitched in swimsuits on the beach. “I want their bodies covered,” Gray explained.

Beyond that, the reverend’s chief concern is simply that the prospective newlyweds be in love.

“I require a meeting with the couple beforehand and I try to ascertain whether there is love between the man and woman,” Gray said. “If that’s there, then I’m satisfied.”

Gray seems to remember something about each of the 367 weddings he has performed and he keeps a scrapbook of notes, Christmas cards and snapshots sent by couples who traded vows before him. But there are a few ceremonies that stand out in his memory--for better or for worse.

Perhaps the most gratifying was a formal affair at Camp Pendleton, where Gray--who was a Pfc. in the Army in World War II--married two Navy pilots before a crowd of colonels and other military brass.

“I was shaking at first,” Gray said, “but it went really smoothly. It was a major event for me to be up there giving the orders that day.”

At another formal ceremony, held overlooking the golf course at Lawrence Welk Village, a catastrophe brought the bride to tears.

“Just as I was saying, ‘Do you, Marcia, take this man . . . ,’ the bride got a look of horror on her face and then the rainbird--the sprinkler--hit me in the head, knocked the Good Book out of my hand and soaked the audience,” Gray recalled with a chuckle. “It struck again before we could all get out of the way.”

Recovering and assuring the bride she would laugh about it one day, Gray completed the ceremony while two busboys stood on the guilty sprinkler, stifling its flow.

Then there was the time Gray “beat the stork by one hour.” The wedding had been planned for 4 p.m., but at noon the reverend got a call from the nervous groom.

“He said his wife (to be) had gone into labor and asked if I could come right away,” Gray recalled. “So I rushed over to their house and said the vows while the poor woman stood there sweating and trembling. The ambulance took her to the hospital an hour later.”

The annual New Year’s Eve wedding rush provides another memorable string of ceremonies, as couples rush to get hitched for tax purposes. Last year, Gray performed six ceremonies on New Year’s Eve, most at less than a week’s notice.

Although most weddings are blissful occasions, a few of Gray’s ceremonies left a bitter taste in his mouth. One time, the reverend looked up from prayer to find the groom, obviously drunk, tipping over.

“His bride grabbed him and propped him back up, and what could I do? We were in the midst of the ceremony. I had to continue,” Gray recalled wistfully. “To me it was morally wrong. Lord forgive me.”

But the most disturbing experience during Gray’s year’s as a marrying man came in 1983, with a wedding that was to have taken place in an Escondido nursing home.

“I went over with my typewriter, all set to issue the license,” Gray recalled. “But part way through the process, I began to realize this man, who was about 85, had no idea what was about to transpire. I asked him who I was and why I was there and he thought I was a doctor.”

His fiance--a woman half his age who had been his personal nurse--said he was just “going through a spell” and would remember their wedding plans once his condition improved. Gray didn’t buy it.

“I did a little detective work and found that he had had a stroke and didn’t have long to live,” Gray said. “So it seems she was one of those fortune hunters.”

A native of Arkansas, Gray moved to California in 1942. On leaving the service, he “bummed around for 10 years” before enrolling in college and obtaining his teaching credentials.

He met his German wife, Helene, in the Los Angeles area and had a “three-day whirlwind romance.” Somewhat sheepishly, Gray confides that the couple married in Las Vegas: “But we did it in a real chapel with a real minister.”

The marriage has lasted 28 years, through six children and two grandchildren, and Gray believes it is living proof that “you don’t need a fancy wedding to have a successful marriage. I don’t have statistics, but I bet my weddings last as long as those in the big churches.”

The Grays moved to Valley Center in 1967 and Theodore began teaching seventh grade. But by the 1980s, he had grown tired of “screaming 12-year-olds,” so he founded the Pentecostal Free Church. In addition to the wedding business, the church ministers to a small Mexican village called Cerro Azul near Ensenada.

“I go down with oranges, a 200-pound sack of pinto beans and clothing each month,” Gray said. “They haven’t got much, so it’s very rewarding work.”

As for the marrying business, it puts Gray “on cloud nine” most of the time. One thing does trouble him a bit, however. In some corners of the religious community, he says, people look down on his ministry and think of his service as the 7-Eleven approach to weddings.

“I hear things, and I’ve been called Marryin’ Sam after that preacher out of the L’il Abner comic strip,” Gray said. Even his wife believes signs advertising the wedding chapel are “garish and tacky and cheapen” his ministry, Gray said.

But those who have made a marital bond before Gray say he is professional, caring and made their wedding day a memorable one. Jim Slattery, 53, who was wed to his wife Adalyn, 48, by Gray in November, called the reverend “a very good-natured, warm-hearted man who gave us some nice personal advice.”

The Bumgardners of Oceanside agreed.

Last Sunday, as about 20 guests looked on, C.H. Bumgardner and Lorraine Coats became the 366th couple to become man and wife before Gray. The bride, who is a grandmother, wore a short white silk dress; the groom, a construction foreman, came in cowboy boots and a tweed coat.

As the guests and the groom looked on, Gray hit a remote control switch behind the altar and Wagner’s “Wedding March” burst from the speakers. At the reverend’s signal, the bride began her slow walk down the red-carpeted aisle. Rock ‘n’ roll music blared from the offices of a trucking firm next door, but no one seemed to mind.

Then the beaming Gray, clad in a three-piece, pin-striped suit, began the service in a deep, booming voice. After several readings and a brief prayer, it was time for the reverend’s personally tailored words of wisdom for the couple.

“I’ve got four points of advice,” Gray said. “It’s free, and it’s probably not worth much, but here it is.”

“One, always communicate. Two, apologize when you’re wrong. Never get swelled up and mad and refuse to say you’re sorry because Satan’s just robbing you of precious time together. Three, take an interest in each other’s activities. The more things you have in common, the more cement there is to hold your marriage together.

“And finally, no matter how mad you may be, always kiss good night and say ‘I love you.’ After a while, you get to taking your spouse for granted, so it never hurts to reaffirm your love.”

Finally, rings and vows were exchanged and Gray, tears welling in his eyes, pronounced the couple husband and wife.