Make a Meaningful Ceremony

The entire reason for having a wedding, really, is the ceremony. The most important aspect of a wedding is not the decorations, but the vows and intentions that are stated in the ceremony and that you give to each other.

While we wrote our own ceremony, and every couple will make even a standard civil or religious ceremony their own, there are a time-honored patterns to wedding ceremonies that are "recycled" from ceremony to ceremony. These are the meaningful steps each couple takes to form the legal marriage bond.

The ceremony begins with a greeting to the guests ("We are gathered here..."), followed by a statement of intention that a marriage will take place. Usually at the end of the ceremony, the officiant asks for anyone who objects to speak. We put this at the beginning of our ceremony, bringing everyone in agreement that we would be wed.

Next, there is what is called the "covenent", which states the meaning of marriage according to the couple's religious tradition, or what marriage means specifically to the couple.

Then there is the leave-taking, which ceremonially moves the bride and groom from their past into the future. In a first marriage of young people, this is when the father gives the daughter away to the groom. When we first married, we modified this to have each of our parents give us to the other and accept us into their families. In this wedding, where we had already left our families, we still included the "giving" by having the minister ask if we freely gave ourselves to the other.

L The vows follow, with the exchange of rings as tokens of rememberance of the vows. At this wedding, for the first time I really understood the importance of the rings and the vows. In our ceremony, we said "these rings are a reminder of the vows..." and now, whenever I look at my ring, I do recall our vows and their importance. Spend some time on your vows and say what it is you really want to promise and create together.

And finally, the officiant gives a blessing as a statement of intent for the couple to have a happy and properous life, and the ceremony ends with a kiss.

L Though we went through a wedding before, I realized this time that we missed out on a lot of the meaning and purpose of the traditions the first time around because we didn't take the time to understand why the traditions are as they are. This time, we realized that a marriage is a personal activity between two people, who choose to join their lives and become a couple. A legal wedding, however, is not so much for the couple, as it is for the community. It establishes for others that these two are to be considered a couple, and makes it known that they are taking responsibility to care for one another. When the officiant pronounces the couple "husband and wife" in a religious ceremony, it is to sanctify the union, but in a legal ceremony it is to announce to the world that they are a couple.

Often ceremonies end with the officient saying "May I introduce Mr. and Mrs. ...". We wanted our ceremony to end with the kiss, so our minister introduced us as we walked into the reception. Knowing now the symbolic importance of the introduction, when I walked in with Larry, I really felt like we were now known to the world as husband and wife.

One thing I've learned about writing wedding ceremonies is to keep them short and sweet. Get the basics in and make it your own. Your ceremony is the heart of your wedding. Make it meaningful to you.

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