Yearly Archives: 2023

Celebrating Love

 in Celebration / Engagement / Love / Weddings  tagged celebrating love / engagement / holiday / wedding by

December holidays are a great time for celebrating love. It might be love for your family – chosen or by blood. Perhaps you celebrate love for your community with donations and volunteer work. Or maybe you’re celebrating love of the romantic sort, with an engagement or wedding.

This time of year is the most popular time for engagements, followed closely by Valentine’s Day. If you’re celebrating love with an engagement this month – Congratulations! Gathering with family and friends at the holidays provides a great opportunity to share the news of your plans to marry.

If this holiday season includes an engagement, you have the exciting work of planning your wedding in front of you. I encourage you to savor the months of your engagement as a wonderful time for you as a couple. You’ll have the opportunity to decide what your wedding vision is, what your priorities are, and how to make them a reality.

Perhaps you’re celebrating love with a holiday wedding this year. Your planning is nearly complete, and the big event is almost here. You’re celebrating love as you cross the threshold into your new chapter as a married couple.

No matter what kind of love you’re celebrating this season, pause to enjoy your time together. In the quiet of a winter evening, or surrounded by the lights of season, let your love glow!

Celebrate Your Uniqueness

 in Ceremony / Personalization / Personalized Ceremony / Rituals / Unity Rituals / Wedding Ceremony  tagged custom rituals / personalized wedding / unity rituals / wedding ceremony / weddings by


Your wedding ceremony is a great opportunity to celebrate your uniqueness. Weddings can be full of traditions that are fun to include in your day, but make sure you include all that makes you special as a couple.

Weddings have been changing for awhile now, which offers you the chance to make the day a personal reflection of yourselves and your relationship. Traditions like bouquet and garter toss at the reception and “giving away” the bride at the ceremony can be left out if you prefer. And new rituals and ceremony approaches that better reflect you can be added.

I strive to make each ceremony I craft for a couple unique to them. Sharing their story is part of the beginning of the ceremony. My goal is for all the guests to learn something new about the couple. If they are interested, I encourage couples to write their own vows. It is another way to let their personalities shine.

Unity Ritual - Sazerac creation
Unity Ritual – Sazerac creation

Unity rituals are an obvious opportunity to celebrate your uniqueness. A trip to New Orleans was a significant event for a couple I married recently. For their unity ritual we had them build a Sazerac cocktail – the official cocktail of New Orleans. I used the characteristics of the ingredients – sweet, bitter, strong, and unique to craft a metaphor for marriage. This is the first Sazerac ritual I’ve written in the more than 500 ceremonies I’ve officiated. It was perfect for them. While there are many lovely “generic” unity rituals available, many can also be customized to
celebrate your uniqueness with a little effort.

An experienced, educated celebrant can work with you to write a wedding ceremony that reflects and celebrates you and the love you share. Start your wedding day with a ceremony that will celebrate your uniqueness as you voice your commitment to each other in marriage.

Welcome to the Family

 in Baby Welcoming / Celebration / Personalized Ceremony / Rituals / Welcoming Ceremony  tagged baby naming ceremony / baby welcoming / child welcoming / humanist ceremony / naming ceremony by

“Welcome to the Family” is a phrase that takes on new meaning when you gather family and close friends to celebrate a new child. I recently had the opportunity to offer two very special Child or Baby Welcoming Ceremonies. I’ve worked with both families to welcome their firstborn children previously, and was invited to celebrate new additions to each family.

These Welcoming ceremonies are a great way for non-religious families to celebrate new additions to their families. For some families a Christian baptism or christening, Jewish bris or Islamic aqiqah isn’t appropriate. A humanist Welcoming Ceremony may be the perfect fit.

Celebrating and welcoming a new baby to the family.
Welcoming a new baby

A Welcoming Ceremony gathers family and close friends together as a casual but significant way to say, “Welcome to the family.” The ceremony itself is co-created by the parents and the celebrant. It includes anything the family wants, but the following elements are common:

  • Sharing the significance of the name chosen for the child.
  • Parent promises identifying the priorities they have as they raise the child.
  • Naming of Guideparents or Mentors to be a positive, continuing presence in the child’s life.
  • Recognition of the role for grandparents, older siblings, and/or extended families.
  • A ritual that may result in a memento of the ceremony that can be shared with the child in the coming years.
Props for a Child Welcoming Ceremony
Items used for a Child Welcoming Ceremony

The rituals are often the most memorable as they can allow all the guests to offer their own welcome to the family. A water and wishing stones ritual invites guests to imbue a small stone with their wishes for the baby’s future. The stones are dropped into a bowl of water. The resulting ripples represent the impact the guest can have on the child’s life. An alternative ritual involves guests bringing letters they have written to the child sharing their hopes and dreams for them as they grow. The letters are collected in a binder to be shared with the child when they are older. An interesting addition to this ritual is the creation of a family puzzle with pictures of each guest. The child can play with the puzzle in just a few years and be told the story of the Welcoming Ceremony.

Water ritual at a Baby Welcoming Ceremony
Water and Wishing Stones Ritual

Welcome to the family ceremonies can be personalized to address each family’s situation. They can be held indoors or out. They can include a meal and socializing following the ceremony. Since the little one is the guest of honor, it is best to keep the ceremonies brief and casual, and schedule them at the time of day when they are most likely to be in good spirits.

Remembering Beloved Pets

 in Ceremony / Personalized Ceremony / Pet memorials  tagged pet memorial / pet memorials / remembering pets by

Remembering beloved pets is an important part of life for many people. Pets are often viewed as family members these days, and we need to make space to grieve them when they die. Pet memorials are becoming more common as people seek ways to remember, honor, and say good-bye to much loved pets.

On a recent trip to Scotland I visited Edinburgh Castle and saw a great example of how they are remembering beloved pets. The castle has been and continues to be home to military personnel. They have established a special area of the castle grounds devoted to remembering beloved pets of the men and women serving there.

When seeking to honor and grieve a pet, having a space like this can be a comfort to their owners. It provides a physical space to visit to remember their pet, and allow them to feel closer to them. Another way to ease the pain of losing a pet is to hold a memorial service for them. Just as we do for the important people in our lives, a pet memorial offers a dedicated space and time to celebrate the life of a companion of many years.

A pet memorial can include shared memories of good times with the pet. You can gather mementos of their life – a favorite toy or blanket, their collar and leash, or even some of their favorite treats. These items can be used to prompt stories of your pet’s personality, shared experiences and adventures, and their favorite things.

Just like a memorial for a person, the best pet memorials are personalized, focus on both their life, acknowledge their passing, and offer a time for shared grief and support as you say your final good-byes. Remembering beloved pets with a pet memorial can help you process the very real feelings of grief you experience when they cross the rainbow bridge.

Dealing with Crazy Relatives

 in Ceremony / Guests / Wedding Ceremony / Weddings  tagged wedding ceremony / wedding ceremony problems / wedding guests / wedding officiant / weddings by

Dealing with crazy relatives at your wedding ceremony can be a challenge. A variety of situations can occur at your wedding ceremony that need diplomatic solutions to keep everything moving forward smoothly.

Before the ceremony even begins, logistical issues can arise. When lining up the wedding party before one ceremony, the bride became flustered when she noticed that the seats reserved for her parents were occupied. An aunt was sitting in one of the seats, next to the grandfather’s wheelchair. With the bride’s concurrence, I approached the woman and politely asked her to move down the row, as these two seats were reserved for the bride’s parents.

Her response surprised me. She said they could take other open seats; that she was assisting the grandfather. I told her the bride’s mother (also the grandfather’s daughter) would be sitting there in just a moment. I suggested she move either further down the first row, or to the second row with her adult children. Then, I quietly stood there. After a few moments she moved further down the row. I returned to check in with the bride, and then started the ceremony. Having ushers who can either seat guests or oversee the seating of guests could have prevented this situation.

Cameras and phones can also prove troublesome in the wrong hands. At another wedding, an aunt of the groom stepped into the aisle to catch pictures of the bride as she entered. She didn’t realize (I hope) that she stepped directly in front of the professional photographer who was also trying to capture that image. These moments happen so quickly during a ceremony that it is difficult for photographers to relocate for an unobstructed view. To prevent dealing with crazy relatives like this one, I can request that guests put their phones and cameras away for the ceremony so they can be fully present with the couple. This is called an unplugged ceremony. It also ensures that any professional photos taken during the ceremony include the guests’ faces, and not a sea of upraised phones.

Dealing with crazy relatives takes some thought and preventive actions. You can’t think of everything, but some situations can be anticipated and avoided. Working with an experienced celebrant can help you consider and even react to the situations that arise unexpectedly.