Personalized Ceremony

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.

Customizing Family Rituals

 in Blended family / Inclusive ceremony / Personalized Ceremony / Rituals / Wedding Ceremony / Weddings  tagged family rituals / personalized rituals / wedding ceremony / wedding rituals by

Customizing family rituals is a creative way to personalize your wedding ceremony. Allowing your personalities shine during your ceremony makes it more interesting. While wedding rituals like blending sand or handfasting can enhance a ceremony, extending them to include your family make them truly memorable.

Sand blending, where the couple pour two different colors of sand into a vessel, has been around since outdoor ceremonies became popular. The ritual represents the blending of two lives in marriage. It has been extended to become a popular ritual for families with children where the couple and each of their children blend colored sand representing themselves into a common vessel representing the new blended family.

I recently saw a new version of this ritual where rather than blending all the different colors, everyone took turns pouring their own color. The resulting layers created a striped effect, which was even more significant when the colors of the Pride flag were used for a same sex couple and their children. The symbolism is a little different, with everyone retaining their individuality (or stripe) while joining together in a single vessel (the new family unit).

Rainbow Ribbons for a Handfasting ritual.

The sand blending ritual is perfect for a family with younger children. If you have adult children, you might consider enhancing the handfasting ritual to represent both the couple and the new, blended family created by their union. I recently wrote this ritual with the adult family members stepping forward to demonstrate their support for their newly married parents, and recognizing their part in the newly blended family. Each adult child brings forward a ribbon which are placed over the parents’ joined hands. The ribbons represent both a wish for the couple, and a coordinated wish for the new family. For example, one ribbon may represent a wish for growing love for the couple and growing connection among all the family members. At the end of the ritual all the ribbons are tied together, as the new family is joined together through their parents’ marriage.

Customizing family rituals in these and similar ways takes a little creativity and thought, but is not difficult to do. Including modified rituals allows them to integrate fully in the ceremony and include all members of a newly blended family. As with many aspects of your wedding ceremony, customizing rituals provides one more way to let your personalities and your new family shine.

Becoming a Family Celebrant

 in Celebrant / Ceremony / Memorial services / Officiant / Personalized Ceremony / Wedding Ceremony / Welcoming Ceremony  tagged child welcoming / family celebrant / memorial service / multiple ceremonies / wedding ceremony by

Becoming a family celebrant has been an unexpected benefit of the work I’ve done as a lifecyle celebrant over the last 14 years. I’ve always offered “cradle to grave” ceremonies, meaning everything from child welcomings to weddings to memorial services. But I didn’t foresee having the opportunity to create and offer multiple ceremonies for a given family.

Becoming a family celebrant has taken different forms for different families. For some families it means offering multiple wedding ceremonies over the years for siblings. I feel especially honored when the second or subsequent sibling contacts me. I know that they’ve seen my work and trust me to create their unique marriage ceremony, too.

Custom memorial services

In other cases, I’ve become the family’s memorial celebrant. I’m called upon to create and offer ceremonies that celebrate and honor the life of a recently deceased family member. I’ve had the privilege to officiate at three memorials for one special family. I’ve helped them recognize the life of the patriarch, matriarch and daughter.

In a twist on the idea of becoming a family celebrant, I’ve repeatedly been called upon to welcome a child into the family of a couple I married earlier. These special requests provide an opportunity for me to catch up with the couple. And I get to see how their lives have grown since I married them. I’ve just recently been contacted to create a welcoming ceremony for the second child of one couple I married a number of years ago. We celebrated their marriage first. Then in 2020 we celebrated the birth of their first child. Now I look forward to celebrating the arrival of their second son later this year.

Baby Welcoming - Wishes Tree
Baby Welcoming – Wishes Tree

While most of the ceremonies I offer are weddings, it is a pleasure to also celebrate and commemorate other life events. I appreciate the trust and confidence previous clients demonstrate when they ask for my assistance a second or even third time.