By personalizing your ceremony you create ownership of your ceremony. Whether it’s a wedding ceremony or a commitment or gay marriage ceremony it becomes uniquely yours.
To add personal touches to your ceremony will require you, the couple to share a little of your lives with your family and friends. Not only details of your relationship, your journey together, but a little of the relationship you share with your family and friends, the music or songs you both love and readings or poetry that you both deem special or meaningful.
You may feel a little vulnerable, awkward or exposed by the ’sharing of yourselves’ process, but hat’s normal you’ll be pleased to know.
One of the best ways to personalize a ceremony is to ask yourselves a few questions. Something like this……..
How did you first meet?
When did you first become aware that you were in love with one another?
Why are you marrying or committing to one another?
Do you share the same expectations of marriage or commitment?
What were the good things that helped you decide?
Were there any difficulties?
What do you like/love most about each other?
What are each others strengths and weaknesses?
What special reason, if any, did you have for deciding on the place for the ceremony?
What does your family mean to you?
What do your friends mean to you?
What are your hopes for the future, individually and for both of you?
By compiling the answers to questions such as these you will begin to see a narrative of your journey, your unique story happening, snippets of the important areas of your lives, the backbone of your values and beliefs, what you both view as important and worthwhile in your life as a result of your life’s experiences and nurturing.
The introduction or the beginning paragraphs of your wedding ceremony is a great place to narrate your ‘journey’. Add to that an acknowledgement of your family – alive and or deceased, a place where you can give heartfelt thanks for unconditional love, nurturing and guidance to parents, extended family – perhaps throw in a few anecdotes to shed light on special times, times of great joy or deep sorrow.
Now it’s time to turn the spotlight on your friends. Next to your parents your very best friends are the most influencial, not only in, but also on your life. In the absence of your own mother, best friends act as ‘mother confessor’, the shoulder to lean on or cry on, someone you can brag to, someone who can give you a jolly good telling off but still be there in the morning to pick up the pieces – be good for a hug, someone who says you look absolutely fantastic in that new dress or suit when you know you probably look like Whistlers mother!
The inclusion of anecdotes involving friends can be a fun, light-hearted way of sharing your journey with them, revealing the lesser-known and possibly deeper side of your relationship with your friends to all the guests attending your wedding ceremony. By doing this it further personalizes and creates the uniqueness of the ceremony.
Really good friends can be just as important as mums and dads and in the overall scheme of things deserve to be acknowledged and thanked for their role in your life thus far.
Music enhances all ceremonies and vows and if the music is chosen by the both of you it personalizes your ceremony because it is a reflection of your personal tastes, style, thoughts and feelings. Music not only has the ability to create an emotive backdrop to a ceremony but can continue a theme, provide words and pictures that are not necessarily said. Thoughts and feelings of the couple to one another and to others can be expressed in music and song. Have a friend or relative sing or play an instrument. Maybe one of them would write a song especially for the occasion?
Choice of readings or poetry in a ceremony reveals a little more of the nature of a person. Poetry and prose may punctuate, add light and dark, continue a theme, convey thoughts and feelings of the couple to each other or to the guests. Again, what a fantastic opportunity for a friend or brother or sister to write a poem for you…..maybe even about you? Have them read it for you, again, your unique stamp is being placed on your ceremony and vows.
In a personalized wedding ceremony, to put the cherry on top of the cake, so to speak, write your own vows. Ask each other exactly what is it that they consider important enough to them, to promise to you at this time. Write it down!! Use it. Let it be in your words. It doesn’t have to be prize winning prose! It is a simple, humble, promise from your heart to the heart of another.Personal vows can be said openly for all to hear or whispered quietly to your partner.There are no rules.
The very nature of personalized ceremonies allows friends and family not only to share a very special moment in time with the couple but for the couple to share their lives thus far and their thoughts and feelings but to do this they need to allow themselves to open up and expose their lives a little to those who matter most in their lives.
Create ownership of wedding ceremonies by personalizing them. For more ideas, examples and guidance check out these sites:
www.thevowsbook.com – a compilation of 25 marriage ceremonies
www.renewalofvows.net – renewal of vows ceremonies
www.spiritualceremonies.info – spiritually inspired ceremonies
www.weddingvows101.net – 101 marriage or commitment vows
www.ring-vows.com – wedding or commitment ring vows
www.2ndmarriageceremonies.com – second marriage ceremonies
www.gaycommitmentceremony.net – gay commitment/marriage ceremonies
www.wedding-ceremonies.net – more marriage ceremonies
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