Yearly Archives: 2019

Personalizing Your Unity Ritual

 in Ceremony / Personalization / Rituals / Unity Rituals / Weddings  tagged personal ceremony / personalized rituals / personalized wedding / unity ritual / wedding ceremony by

Personalizing your unity ritual is a wonderful way to share part of yourselves with your guests during your wedding ceremony. Unity rituals usually follow your exchange of vows and rings and are meant to be symbolize your coming together in marriage. There are a number of meaningful unity rituals that you can choose from, but creating a new ritual that reflects you, your interests or values can add extra significance to your ceremony.

Through the years I’ve had the opportunity to write unity rituals for couples that connected to them in various ways. Here are some examples:

Personalizing Your Unity Ritual – Hot Toddy

Hot toddies: This couple was serving hot toddies as the signature drink at their fall wedding, so we had them build one during the ceremony. We spoke about the sugar representing the sweet and loving moments in their marriage, and the lemon representing the more challenging times they may face together. The alcohol represented the strength of their love and passion for each other, and the hot water reflected the need to provide support and warmth each and every day. The ritual connected their guests to the couple and to the festivities to come. As toasts were raised with the signature drink during the reception, it hearkened back to the ceremony itself.

Personalizing Your Unity Ritual – Craft Beer Sharing

Beer sharing: With many couples enjoying craft beers these days, this unity ritual may have broad appeal, but it was especially meaningful for this couple – he ran a craft brewery and had invented the beer, she had named this particular brew “Sunny Days”, and they shared it and toasted their marriage with it during their ceremony.

Personalizing Your Unity Ritual – Cookies and Milk

Cookies and milk: This unity ritual shared an intimate part of the couple’s lives with their guests. Each day they shared milk and cookies at the kitchen table as they shared the events of the day with each other. They each had their favorite cookie. One needed non-dairy milk. They will carry these preferences and needs into their marriage, retaining their individuality. But by connecting each day they will ensure that their marriage and life together remains their focus.

Personalizing your unity ritual as these couples did allows your guests to know more about you as individuals and a couple, and connects the ritual to you in a memorable way. Whenever they share a hot toddy, toast with a beer or share milk and cookies it reminds them in a subtle way of their wedding day, of the promises they made to each other, and of the life they are building together. Let your unity ritual be just as powerful for you.

Vow Renewal Celebrations – To Show Your Love

 in Celebration / Ceremony / Personalization / Vow Renewals  tagged vow renewal ceremonies / vow renewals by

Vow Renewal celebrations are an opportunity to show your love once more. There are many reasons that you might consider a vow renewal ceremony as articulated in this article from Weddingbee. Just like your first wedding, a vow renewal ceremony can be whatever you want it to be.

If you didn’t have the ceremony of your dreams when you first married, this might be the opportunity to gather family and friends and do it up big. Perhaps military service, medical issues, finances or other constraints led to a simple certificate signing without any ceremony at all. Or you chose to elope and didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate with those people important to you. Now that your circumstances have changed, why not create the special moments and memories you missed the first time around? A ceremony complete with readings, rituals, music and a special walk down the aisle may be perfect for you.

A smaller, intimate ceremony may be called for if you are coming through a challenging time as a couple, or if you are focusing on remembering what you love about each other. Perhaps you will include a few special family members, but this kind of ceremony might be for just the two of you and your celebrant as you acknowledge the difficulties of the past and commit to moving forward as a couple, centered on your love for each other.

And finally, milestone anniversaries of successful marriages are definitely worth celebrating with vow renewal celebrations. This is an opportunity to bring in touches from your first wedding – perhaps say the same vows, use the same reading, or invite some of your wedding party to join you again. But this is also an opportunity to reflect on your successful marriage by including your children, by reminiscing on some of the highlights (and challenges you’ve faced together and overcome), and by making new vows to each other that honor the past and look to the future, too.

No matter the reason for your vow renewal celebrations, the ceremony will once again be the highlight of the day, and can be whatever you want it to be. You are limited only by your preferences and choices as you celebrate again the love you share, so make it special, personal, and authentically yours.

Being True to Yourselves

 in Ceremony / Weddings  tagged ceremony / certificate signing / elopement wedding / simple wedding / wedding / wedding ceremony by

Being true to yourselves guarantees that you will have a successful wedding day. It’s important to respect your personalities, style, finances, and priorities when planning your wedding. Doing so creates an experience that you are comfortable with on many levels and can remember fondly. My daughter-in-law coined the phrase that she and my son “win at weddings” to capture this idea. And you can feel that way, too.

The centerpiece of any wedding day is the ceremony – it is, after all the marrying part that is the reason for the entire experience. Your ceremony can be as simple or elaborate as you want. Options range from meeting the minimal requirements of your state’s marriage laws to constructing a ceremony full of personal and meaningful moments. Being true to yourselves when deciding what kind of ceremony you will have means that you can relax and enjoy the experience.

If you want to be married quickly with little fanfare and expense, a certificate signing might be the right answer for you. Meeting with a celebrant and your witnesses (required in Minnesota), you can be married and the paperwork signed in under five minutes. This kind of ceremony can happen at your home or nearly any public location – park, coffee shop, etc. If timing is critical, finances are tight, or you simply don’t like being the center of attention, this can be a good choice for you. And remember, if you decide you want a larger celebration at a later date, a vow renewal ceremony with family and friends can always be arranged.

Being true to yourselves could also mean planning a very small, intimate gathering that includes a simple ceremony. This allows for an exchange of vows and (optionally) rings, and provides a brief “ceremony experience”. Again, this can happen in your home or a small private room at a restaurant, or even in a park. If your priorities are to marry your partner and celebrate with an intimate circle of family and friends, this might be your perfect wedding.

Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of a big wedding surrounded by many loved ones and friends, and want a personalized ceremony that reflects you as a couple and launches you into married life. Being true to yourself then means investing time, effort, and of course money to plan and execute a day that fulfills that vision.

All these options are available to you. Picking the one that fits you and your circumstances best allows you to truly be “in the moment” on your wedding day. Being true to yourselves will always feel most comfortable and right. Then you can focus on your partner, the love you share, and the life you will build together. Best wishes for a long and happy marriage.

Questions to Ask Your Officiant

 in Celebrant / Ceremony / Officiant / Weddings  tagged celebrant / non-religious wedding / officiant / secular ceremony / secular wedding / wedding / wedding celebrant / wedding ceremonies / wedding ceremony / wedding officiant / weddings by

There are questions to ask your officiant at your first meeting that will help you decide if you want to book their services for your wedding day. Last week I wrote about how to find potential officiants, so you’ll want to read that post first. Now that you’re speaking with a prospective officiant in person (or via technology if you’re not in the same city), you’ll want to use your time wisely and ask some important questions.

The questions to ask your officiant are ones that help you determine if you’re a good fit for each other. You’ll want to have trust and confidence that this person will provide the kind of ceremony you want in a meaningful, professional and approachable manner. Here are 6 questions to help you make that determination:

  1. Are you available for the date, time and location of our wedding ceremony? You don’t want to waste anyone’s time if these basic criteria aren’t met. Bonus points if the officiant has performed ceremonies at your venue before. They’ll know the venue manager and how to use the space effectively for you.
  2. Do you offer the kind of ceremony we want? This is a multi-faceted question. First, if you’re looking for a secular or non-religious ceremony, do they offer that? Conversely, if you want religion in your ceremony, are they knowledgeable and willing to include the prayers and religious readings you want? If you’ve been to other weddings and do or do not want a particular element in your ceremony, are they willing to accommodate that? Examples could be a particular unity ritual, reading, or approach to vows.
  3. How involved will we be in ceremony creation? Officiants may want you to provide information via a questionnaire to allow them to personalize the ceremony. They may want you to review the ceremony draft and provide feedback – or alternately, they may not be willing to share the ceremony wording in advance of your wedding day. The important thing is to understand the expectations and make sure you’re comfortable with them.
  4. What background, education and/or experience do you have in ceremony creation? Everyone has a first ceremony, but if the officiant is inexperienced they should be able to point to education or training that prepares them to do good work for you.
  5. What is included in your services? Consider whether the officiant will run a rehearsal for you if you want, how far in advance of the ceremony time they will arrive, and if they handle the legal paperwork for you after the ceremony. Some officiants can provide a sound system to allow your guests to hear the ceremony while some rely on you to provide that. And importantly, how accessible is the officiant to you if you have questions along the way?
  6. Do you have an agreement or contract that we all sign that clearly identifies services to be provided by the officiant and those that are your responsibility? Sometimes officiant services are booked a year or more in advance, and it’s best to have clear documentation of what has been agreed to.

Using these questions to ask your officiant, you can gather a wealth of information and will be able to determine your comfort level in working with them. You’ll feel more comfortable and confident during your initial meeting when you arrive armed with these 6 questions to ask your officiant, and more confident making a decision to move forward with them.

As we move into the second half of 2019 I’m beginning to hear from more couples looking for an officiant for their 2020 wedding days. I look forward to speaking with couples and am happy to address all the questions above. But I realize that selecting an officiant is new to most of you, so I’m always happy to guide the conversation so we all get the information we need, if that is your preference.

Finding the Right Wedding Officiant

 in Celebrant / Ceremony / Officiant / Weddings  tagged celebrant / non-religious wedding / officiant / secular ceremony / secular wedding / wedding / wedding celebrant / wedding officiant / weddings by

Finding the right wedding officiant can be as simple as asking your local minister, rabbi or priest. However, if you are looking for a secular/non-religious ceremony or want a personalized ceremony that focuses on you and the love you’ve found together, finding the right person can take a little more effort.

Finding the right wedding officiant isn’t hard, if you follow these steps:

  1. Decide what kind of ceremony you want. Are you looking for a more traditional ceremony, or do you want something more creative that reflects you as a couple?
  2. Next, make sure you have settled on a wedding date and ceremony venue. These are likely the first questions a potential officiant will ask you. If they are not available on the date and time you need them, there’s no reason to waste your time discussing your ceremony wishes further.
  3. Ask around. Perhaps you’ve been to a wedding that you thought was particularly special. Ask the couple for contact information for their officiant. Maybe co-workers or other acquaintances have recently married or attended a great wedding. They are another source of officiant names.
  4. Use the internet. A search for “Rochester wedding officiant” should turn up a number of options. You can check out websites to learn more about these folks. Things to look for include how they describe their services: does it sound like the kind of ceremony you’re looking for? Read any testimonials that are posted and see if they resonate with you. And check if they provide a page of Frequently Asked Questions – these can give you a good idea of how they work.
  5. Take the plunge and reach out to an officiant or two or three. Many officiants provide an online form you can use to contact them, and they all list email addresses and phone numbers. If you have identified more than one potential officiant it’s good to contact a few as some may be booked already.

When contacting a potential officiant, it’s best to begin by sharing your names, your wedding date, ceremony venue and ceremony time (if known). It’s great, but not necessary in this first communication to share anything that is important to you about your ceremony. Do you want a non-religious ceremony? Is there a particular unity ritual you would like to include? Do you want to write your own vows? This additional information will help the officiant determine if they might be a good fit for you.

Finding the right wedding officiant using the steps above helps you identify one or a few possible officiants for your wedding day. The next step is setting up an in person (or video chat/Skype/Facetime) meeting. Next week I’ll write about what questions you’ll want to ask when that meeting happens.