By Morica Parkinson

When two hearts prepare to intertwine on the wedding aisle, a choreographer is needed to guide them into matrimony. 

For the past thirteen years, marriage officer Clyde Bogle has been weaving the threads of commitment and legality into the tapestry of lifelong unions.  

Born and raised as the son of Gloria and Pastor James Bogle in Mount Pleasant, Clarendon, Clyde’s first encounter with love was with his family, his parents and five siblings. His father, two uncles, and grandfather are also pastors.

In his year, Bogle was placed at Clarendon College after being the only student from Garlogie All Age School to pass the Common Entrance Examination. 

“Clarendon College was far from where I lived and I didn’t want to go there because my brother Carlton went there and had many bad experiences. Nevertheless, I started there but was later transferred to Manchester High School. The principal at the time, Mr Burnout, and I now work together as Justices of the Peace and sit on many boards together,” said Bogle.

After his father’s death, Bogle left his profession in construction and farming and became a pastor like his father. He was later gazetted as a marriage officer on June 9, 2011.

For more than a decade, Bogle has been impassioned to unite hearts through nervous smiles and whispers of “I dos”.

Behind the scenes, Bogle has a myriad of responsibilities that extend far beyond the exchange of vows. 

“I am very firm when it comes to counselling, so I recommend at least 10 sessions before the wedding. I also encourage my clients not to set a wedding date before undergoing counselling as the sessions will unearth things like red flags which I will point out. When these things are highlighted and the couple has their date set, it can cause me to look like their enemy, hence I tell them not to set a date,” says Bogle. 

He says some couples are not open to acknowledging the red flags nor taking the recommended steps to resolve them before entering the marriage and this eventually leads to marital problems and in some cases divorce. 

He added that a lot of people are not marrying for genuine love but for opportunities and what they can get. As a result, the divorce and remarriage rate in Jamaica is very high.

“Nowadays I realise that people are joking out the vows. So instead of saying for richer or poorer they are now saying for richer and richer. They don’t want to say in sickness and in health or until death do us part either, instead, they are now saying ‘until I find fault.” So we [marriage officers] have to be serious with this,” said Bogle.  

He explained that it’s not that couples are looking forward to getting poorer or wishing for trying times when they say for richer or poorer, but just in case they encounter any challenges they are willing to stay with each other. 

Speaking on his passion for officiating weddings, Bogle said, “Sometimes I have to wait up to three hours to start the ceremony but it’s always a fun time especially when the couple is about to kiss. So I’ll say things like, “We don’t want to see any standard English kissing. Her parents gave her away already so you may now kiss your bride in patois!”

Kissing in Patois is kissing with more passion but not uncontrolled. It calms the couple before their first kiss and evokes much cheer and laughter in the guests, he explained. 

As a seasoned marriage officer, it is not so much about the money but a ministry for Bogle. Beyond his marriage officiating duties, Bogle has been the pastor of the Mount Pleasant Church of Christ for over 16 years, serves as a Justice of the Peace, a police chaplain for the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Area 3 , a member of the Lay Magistrates’ Association of Jamaica (Manchester chapter), deputy zone coordinator of the Williamsfield/Porus zone and a global chaplain with the rank of a sergeant. 

“The journey to getting to where I am wasn’t an easy one. I endured a lot. I left high school without a single subject. It’s not that I was lazy or that I was a time waster but my mom got ill and because of the loving family we are and the bond we had, I paid more attention to her illness than school,” he recalled. 

Bogle admitted that he struggled with low self-esteem and endured humiliation due to that, but with a zeal of ambition and a will to succeed, he enrolled at the Bible College in Mandeville, now called Regent College of the Caribbean where he was allowed to complete Caribbean Secondary Examinations Council (CSEC) subjects while doing a certificate course. 

“Being at Bible College was a bit humiliating. I sat in classes with children younger than my first son until at one point they thought I was one of the teachers but I was determined to make a change. So after completing the certificate course I did my Diploma and then my Bachelor’s degree in Theology with a minor in counselling at Northern Caribbean University and gained several other certifications,” he expressed. 

Morica Parkinson is a journalism student at the Northern Caribbean University