Creating the ceremony:
For us, the ceremony was the most important part of our wedding
weekend. Of course, the wedding books make it seem as if the flowers or the
shoes are more important decisions, and that the ceremony is simply an off the
shelf item. Fortunately, after going to numerous weddings that were true to the
couple and reading a few books, we learned that it didn't need to be this way.
Books:
Robert Fulghrum: From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives
The chapter entitled "Union" was given to me by a coworker and was probably the
most influential in creating our ceremony. We referred to it constantly as a
way of staying true to ourselves.
Weddings from the Heart
This book was tremendously helpful in breaking down the ceremony into parts and
explaining the significance of each one. It gave five greatly varying examples
ceremonies, as well as many additional ideas that could be thrown in.
The Knot: Wedding Vows & Traditions
There are so many ways to write one's vows - it was helpful to see this variety.
We borrowed many ideas from our friends' weddings:
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From Zoë & Wade: walking down the "aisle" with both of our parents and adding
our sisters. Zoë was also tremendously helpful with helping us identify what
we wanted in a site.
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From Jennifer & Clifton: ideas from the words & readings of the ceremony they
created for themselves.
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From Ingrid & Dan: passing the rings around to be blessed.
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From Becca & Michael: their spiral ceremony idea inspired our circle ceremony.
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From Scott & Sue: the bagpiper idea!
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From Joe & Erin: a creative guest book with a Polaroid camera, and a
creative first dance that gave us confidence that ours would be just fine
however it turned out!
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From cousins: the "who's who" booklet.
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And from the numerous photographs, wedding magazines, registry lists, ceremony
programs and wedding invites that my mother sent to me: helping us discover
what we didn't want! :-)
Much of ceremony creation came from our hearts and from working with Ingrid.
The process of sharing ourselves and our relationship with a close friend
helped us vocalize what we wanted to say. Thank you again, Ingrid, for your
patience and wisdom.
Here is a copy of our ceremony.
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