Ceremony

There are a lot of traditions that have built up around weddings, but sometimes those traditions just don’t fit for you. It’s perfectly fine to start a new tradition or simply break with tradition and chart your own path. One tradition that can be fraught with emotion is the question of who will walk you down the aisle.

Traditionally, a bride’s father walks her down the aisle, but in some cases this isn’t the right choice or simply isn’t possible. If your father has passed, or has never been a part of your life, you’ll obviously need to approach this question differently, but there are other reasons, too. As we’ve moved away from the historical view of marriage as a property transfer of the bride from father to husband, it has come to represent more a leave taking from your birth family to the new family unit you will create with your new spouse. With this idea in mind, some brides choose to have both parents escort them into their wedding ceremony.

If you have both a father and a stepfather, they can share the role of escort by walking on each side, or by having your birth father escort you part way and your stepfather join in or escort you the rest of the way on his own. Your relationships with these men (and theirs with each other) can help you decide which approach is more appropriate for you.

One of the most challenging situations I’ve seen brides wrestle with is when they don’t have a father figure in their life. This can be because of death, emotional distance, or from not knowing their father at all. In these situations some brides have happily walked in with their mothers, honoring with this special role the woman who has raised them. Others have chosen and uncle or grandfather to represent the family that raised her.

Since many brides I work with are mid-twenties or older and have established themselves professionally and personally, another option I’m seeing them choose is to walk into their ceremony as a couple – the bride and groom or two brides or two grooms walking both in and out of their ceremonies together. This option reduces the focus on the families that raised you and focuses instead on you as an established couple choosing marriage together. It can be a powerful statement as well as a comfortable option to walk into your ceremony with the love of your life.

So if tradition doesn’t work for you, look for another option that fits you and your situation and allows you to joyously celebrate the day you cross the threshold into marriage with the person you love.

About half of the couples I marry choose to write their own vows. This allows their personalities to shine through, and allows them to make the personal promises they want to at this important moment. In reflecting on how to approach writing your own vows, I recently thought of a new idea that might work well for you.

Start by creating a single sentence that captures what you’re promising at a high level. For example you could say, “John, today I promise to love you, to support and respect you, and to build our future together with you.” Then, take a sentence or two to expand on each of those promises. Continuing the example, you could say, “I can’t imagine how I could love you more than I do today, but I know that my love is deeper and more profound than when we first fell in love 3 years ago. So I trust that by investing my time and focus in our relationship going forward, my love for you will grow in depth and strength in the coming years.”

You could continue in this manner, sharing how you will support your partner to achieve their goals; will be by their side to celebrate their successes and will be a loving listener and shoulder for them through challenging times. When you’ve expounded on each of the promises in the initial sentence, you’re ready to wrap up with a statement of happiness, love, appreciation, or whatever other emotion you are feeling as you gather with family and friends to publicly voice your commitment to the person you’re marrying.

This approach to writing vows will result in a coherent and focused vow that is appropriate in length, meaningful, and significant. It gives you the opportunity to inject humor, gravity, quirkiness, or a bit of your history, and still keep the focus on the promises you’re making to each other.

A variation on this approach would be to write the initial promise statement with your partner, and then alternate as you expand on what each part of the promise means to you. This would create a more conversational flow to your vows, and would hold the attention of your guests, too.

However you approach your wedding vows, they are the most important words of the day, so start thinking about and talking about them far in advance of your wedding day. You may start down one path, only to find out that a different approach works best for you. Give yourselves time and flexibility to make your vows what you really want them to be.

Historically, most wedding ceremonies took place in churches or other houses of worship, and have been defined in large part by religious rules and traditions. But times have changed, and many weddings now take place in parks, museums, golf clubs, historic mansions or specialized wedding venues. If you move your ceremony out of religious buildings and select an officiant who is not bound by religious rules, the possibilities for your wedding ceremony really open up.

When you select a secular ceremony, you have no restrictions on the kinds of music you choose, the readings you want offered, or the unity ritual you find meaningful. You are welcome to write your own vows, you can add in other rituals or include other people in your ceremony if you wish.

Your secular ceremony can have a very traditional look and feel if that’s the experience you want. Classical music selections, well known readings from Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning can be used. Repeat after me vows using familiar language may be the perfect choice for you. Unity candles or sand blending ceremonies can be offered. And traditional language can make the ceremony very similar to other weddings you’ve attended.

But if you wish to extensively personalize your secular ceremony, that’s possible, too. The theme from “Princess Bride” for the bride’s entrance, is not traditional, but may be the perfect fit for you. Writing your own vows and choosing to include some humor in them may perfectly reflect your personal dynamic as a couple. Using an offering from children’s literature or contemporary poetry as a reading may express your views on love or marriage. And a tree planting or handfasting may be the ideal ritual to follow your exchange of vows and rings.

All those less traditional choices can still be wound into a wedding ceremony that feels like a wedding ceremony. The familiar elements – processional, reading, vows, unity ritual – are all still there, but have been selected to keep the focus on you as a couple and better reflect your personalities and style. You will have a meaningful experience marking your commitment to each other in marriage, and your guests will feel they’ve had a recognizable “ceremony experience”, too. But you’ll be comfortable with the language used, and the content will celebrate you as a couple as the cross the threshold into marriage.