Wedding
Rituals...The preliminary ritual possibilities
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| Wedding at Graham Chapel |
This week
we're going to talk about wedding rituals. Rituals allow you to add beauty to
your wedding with rituals that symbolize the events of the day in a memorable
and meaningful way. There are rituals special to nationalities, ethnic groups
and more.
There are
religious wedding rituals which we will not discuss this week. We'll
concentrate on the non religious rituals. There are a lot of rituals to cover
even if I only stick to the main ones so expect this to run over the next
couple of weeks
You can have
as many rituals as you want in the ceremony. I generally advise that two to
four should be your maximum, depending on which rituals we are talking about. You
have to be careful that too many rituals could lead to the three ring circus
effect. So let's get started.
Preliminary Possibilities
Presentation of
the Bride/Blessings of the Family.
This ritual
is often referred to as "giving away the Bride," which denotes the
Bride as property. A more modern thinking on this ritual is that the Bride is
"presented" to the Groom by a family member denoting that the Groom
has the blessing of the family for the marriage. This ritual starts with the Bride being
escorted down the aisle.
The most
traditional way this is generally done is the Bride being escorted by her
father. But I've done weddings where the bride was presented by:
Father and Stepfather
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| Wedding at Ameristar Casino |
Son
Mother
Mother and Son
Stepfather
Family Friend.
I've had the
traditional walking down the aisle the most but I've done weddings where Bride
and Presenter danced a simple step down the aisle, another did a dance routine
and surprised everyone including the Groom....grabbed and incorporated at the
end of their routing.
You can be
as traditional or creative as you want.
Honor and
Acknowledgements
This is
generally used to honor and acknowledge families. I can talk about families in
general or I can mention the names of your parents, grandparents.
I talk about
the family as foundation that led to where the two are you are today.
As an option
here you can have the Bride give the Groom's mom a flower and the Groom gives
the Bride's mom a flower.
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Another
option is to use this section to mention important folks that are deceased.
This can be done without bringing down the tone of the ceremony by a quick mentioning
their names and a) put a flower on the alter b)put a lighted candle the head
reception table c) put photos of the deceased at the reception hall on a table
set aside to honor family.
Joining of
Families
We use this
ritual as one of the ways to involve the children of the Bride or Groom in the
ceremony. The text with this ritual talks about the fact that the ceremony of
marriage involves more than just the Bride and Groom, that the marriage also is
about the children.
Next week we
will talk about the rituals that are symbolic of the two lives of Bride and
Groom embarking on a shared path.
The Unity
Candle, Sand Ritual and the Wine Ritual are just a few of these.
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