wedding ceremony

Involving Others in Your Ceremony

 in Ceremony / Guests / Rituals / Weddings  tagged wedding / wedding ceremony / wedding guests / wedding rituals by

Involving others in your ceremony is a great way to share your happiness on your wedding day. This is the day when you voice your promises to each other in front of family and friends. It is a community event, and including loved ones in more active ways is a great way to feel the love they have for you. There are a few different ways you can involve others in your ceremony. For example:

Before the ceremony begins:

  • You can ask someone to ensure that all honored loved ones get their corsages and boutonnierres.
  • You can charge one or more people with the job of welcoming guests and directing them to the ceremony space. This is especially helpful if you don’t have ushers as part of your wedding party, or if the parking and ceremony spaces are not in sight of each other.

During the ceremony:

  • Involving others in your ceremony can begin with the processional. You can invite grandparents, siblings or other close family members (perhaps an aunt who helped raise you) to be part of the processional.
  • Inviting someone to offer a reading is a common way to honor someone close to you, but you can also have a friend or family member offer the final wishes on behalf of your assembled guests.

If you wish to involve all of your guests in the ceremony, that is possible, too. Consider a ring warming ritual where your rings are passed among the guests. They hold the rings for a moment and silently express a wish for your marriage or imbue them with their love. When you exchange the rings, they represent not only the love of your partner, but the love and support of the important people in your lives.

Ring Warming ritual ©Midwest LifeShots Photography

A wishing pebbles ritual is another possibility. Here, your guests hold small stones (or shells or other keepsake you wish to provide) and under the direction of your celebrant, they imbue the pebble with wishes for your marriage. These stones can be individually gifted to you and the wishes shared during the actual ceremony if there are fewer than approximately 30 guests, or can be collected and shared with you as you greet your guests after the ceremony.

Wishing Pebbles

And finally, involving your guests can be as simple as them placing their thumbprint/signature on a poster as they leave the ceremony. This tradition comes from Quaker weddings where all guests sign the wedding certificate. A decorative copy of your vows, or a tree or heart shape can be provided to collect the contributions of your guests and later hung in your home as a reminder of all the special people who shared in your important day.

Thumbprint Ritual

Involving others in your ceremony brings them into your wedding day as active participants, demonstrating their love and support for you. It also offers you the opportunity to honor special people with visible roles. The day is all about you as a couple, but it is also about you as part of a loving community. Make the most of it.

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.

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.

Leaving Tradition Behind

 in Ceremony / Personalization / Trends / Weddings  tagged wedding ceremony / wedding traditions / wedding trends / weddings by

Leaving tradition behind on your wedding day can allow you to personalize your event and also reduce the stress of the day. In recent weeks I’ve written about leaving tradition behind with regard to your wedding party and ceremony helpers. Today let’s consider other wedding ceremony traditions that are falling out of favor with couples.

Runners – These have been used for ages, first to keep “devils” from coming up through the stone floors in churches, and to help keep wedding dresses clean. However, runners at outdoor ceremonies are asking for trouble as the picture below shows. If you want to highlight your aisle, consider using flower petals as illustrated in the second picture.

Runner on a windy day

Veils, especially veils over the bride’s face – While veils are a wonderful finishing touch for a bride, they can cause problems at outdoor ceremonies when they catch on twigs or blow in the wind. Since the bride’s identity is no longer a secret, veils are a fashion statement these days and not a necessity. Fascinators, decorative combs, clips or pins are often used by modern brides and carry over gracefully to the reception, too.

Giving away the bride – This is another antiquated concept that was part of wedding ceremonies when the bride was chattel being legally transferred from father to groom. It’s perfectly OK to pass on this part of the ceremony. No one will miss it, and it feels pretty inappropriate for many couples who have established their own lives and professions in advance of marriage.

Using “man and wife” when pronouncing the couple married. Currently options include “husband and wife”, “husbands together” or “wives together”. This keeps the couple on equal footing grammatically and offers options for same sex couples.

Similarly, the traditional introduction of “Mr and Mrs John Smith” is often replaced with “Mr and Mrs John and Mary Smith”, “… as a married couple, John Smith and Mary Jones”, or simply, “… as a married couple, John and Mary.” These options identify you as equal partners in the marriage and work well for same sex couples and couples where neither partner is changing their name.

If you find value or enjoyment in wedding traditions, it’s fine to incorporate them into your ceremony, but leaving tradition behind when planning your wedding is equally fine. Choose rituals, language, decor and attire that represents you as a couple, and it will feel comfortable and authentic.