{"id":41881,"date":"2014-10-01T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/"},"modified":"2014-10-01T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T19:00:00","slug":"single-woman-marries-herself","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/","title":{"rendered":"Single Woman Marries Herself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A UK woman, Grace Gelder, married herself after failing to find love &hellip; at the ripe-&quot;old&quot; age of 31! According to <em>The Daily Mail<\/em>, Gelder &quot;proposed to herself on a park bench, bought a ring and a dress and invited all of her friends to watch her make her vows.&quot; Gelder said in an interview, &quot;The day was obviously centered on me, the final event being a mirror for me to kiss &hellip;&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Her wedding is not recognized by the law. This story was even picked up on the show Late Night with Seth Meyers, who quipped &quot;I don&#39;t know how to tell you this, but the lady you just married might be crazy.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><em>Possible Preaching Angle:<\/em><\/h2>\n\n<p><em>Without minimizing Gelder&#39;s struggle or the struggle of the many people who struggle to find a suitable romantic partner, do we have to look to ourselves as our only source of love? Are we really becoming that selfish, narcissistic, and hopeless, that when all else fails we marry ourselves? Is there no one who can love us more than we can love ourselves?<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3726,3931,4395,4425,4516,4546,4909,4927,4937,4987],"tax_ctp_topics":[388,390,395],"class_list":["post-41881","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-failure","tax_ctp_tags-love","tax_ctp_tags-marriage","tax_ctp_tags-narcissism","tax_ctp_tags-news-that-illustrates","tax_ctp_tags-self-centeredness","tax_ctp_tags-self-love","tax_ctp_tags-selfishness","tax_ctp_tags-singleness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Single Woman Marries Herself - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Single Woman Marries Herself - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A UK woman, Grace Gelder, married herself after failing to find love &hellip; at the ripe-&quot;old&quot; age of 31! According to The Daily Mail, Gelder &quot;proposed to herself on a park bench, bought a ring and a dress and invited all of her friends to watch her make her vows.&quot; Gelder said in an interview, Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/\",\"name\":\"Single Woman Marries Herself - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-01T19:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-10-01T19:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Single Woman Marries Herself\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Single Woman Marries Herself - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/single-woman-marries-herself\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Single Woman Marries Herself - CT Pastors","og_description":"A UK woman, Grace Gelder, married herself after failing to find love &hellip; at the ripe-&quot;old&quot; age of 31! 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