By TOMI BRUNTON
Roughly 55 local couples marry every year in the iconic Memorial Chapel that sits on the University of Maryland (UMD) campus facing Route 1.
About half of the couples who marry in the interfaith chapel’s two wedding venues are UMD alumni, according to chapel manager Denise McHugh. Most couples marry in the summer and fall.
“This June, I think we have about eight weddings booked, and then we also have weddings in July and August as well,” McHugh said. “Through the three months we have about 25 weddings currently booked, with … space for more.”
The building has a large main chapel that can seat up to 300. A smaller chapel on the lower level, the Garden Chapel, can fit 100.
“On a given weekend, we can do weddings in both spaces,” McHugh said. “We … stagger them so both ceremonies aren’t happening at the exact same time, but it is possible for us to do … more than one wedding a day because of those two spaces.”
McHugh noted that the chapel isn’t booked solid this June.
“Even though we have quite a busy summer planned, we still have spaces,” McHugh said. “But a lot of the prime time, of course … is taken at this point,” noting that the most popular time for a wedding at the chapel is 2 p.m. on the weekends.
The least popular time of year is winter, so the chapel offers discounted prices during those months. McHugh noted, however, that January and February are “still quieter compared to the rest of the year.”
McHugh recalled a particularly unusual call: Someone getting married the next day hoped to have the wedding at the chapel.
“It was a small wedding — there were only a few people — but still, that was a first for us,” McHugh said. “But it worked out. We made it happen. … We’d like a little bit more time, but we can work with unique schedules.”
The chapel’s grounds offer a restive space, the Garden of Reflection and Remembrance, which opened in 2010.
McHugh said the garden includes a “labyrinth walk,” a spiral path leading inward to the center of the garden.
“You enter [the labyrinth] with either just a wish to be present, or you enter with, maybe, something on your mind,” McHugh said. “You can stay in the center for as long as you like to continue to meditate or be present in the environment.”
At the center of the garden, McHugh added, are five benches with community journals that anyone can write in.
The chapel dates to the 1940s, when four UMD undergraduates were inspired to create a space for campus religious groups, according to McHugh.
“They had this groundswell of interest from campus, students and others, and that got the ball rolling,” McHugh said. “They presented the petition to the Board of Regents for the university system,” she added. The chapel was completed in 1952.
McHugh said UMD was “looking for a way to honor the University of Maryland students and former students who had been connected to World War II,” so the Board of Regents dedicated the chapel to veterans who studied at the university.
“That connection remains until this present day,” McHugh said. We “hold a vigil each year on Veterans Day, especially in remembrance of UMD-connected individuals, but staff and students who died … while serving our country.”
McHugh said religious groups on campus use the chapel about half of the time.
“[We] have 14 chaplaincies, and these are individuals who represent different religious faiths who are connected to the chapel,” she said. “We have Christian chaplains, a Muslim chaplain, two Jewish chaplains and a Hindu chaplain. … Over the years, those numbers have grown and this broader expanse of denominations or faith backgrounds have been added.”
The Rev. Raymond Ranker, the Lutheran chaplain, said the chapel brings together people from “different faith backgrounds for discussions, for meditation sessions, for different kinds of programs that really show ways that we are all connected.”
“It’s really important that … the chapel is an interfaith chapel,” Ranker said. “Some might look at it, might think, ‘Oh, this is a church.’ Well, no.”
According to Ranker, the chapel sometimes organizes interfaith cohorts for groups of university students from different religions to meet and learn about each other.
“The Muslims would host in their space and share about their religion, what they believe, what their practice is,” Ranker said. “And then, you know, we’d rotate. So then the Jews would invite the folks over … and then the Christians would invite them to a Christian worship space, and then we’d come back to the chapel and … debrief about that.”
Ranker said many of the religious gatherings in the chapel are open to the community, though some are exclusively for UMD students.
“For daily Mass, anybody in the community could come,” Ranker said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to get turned away. But … our Tuesday Bible study is for students, staff and faculty.”
In addition to hosting weddings and religious gatherings, the chapel serves as a venue for funerals, concerts and group retreats, McHugh said. Some campus and community groups also use the chapel as a meeting space.
