We're Writing Our Ceremony from Scratch - Ideas Everyone?

MerAndTrick

Hey everyone!!

We are writting our own, spiritual but non-religious, weddingceremony from scratch.  We know that we want to write our own vows, and we want it to not just be about us but about the amazing friends and family that are there to celebrate our wedding.

So I wanted to get inputs... What parts/ phrases of weddings have you seen in weddings you've been to that you really liked?  Any ideas for things to include/ remove?  If you wrote your own ceremony, what would you want said?

naomikb

I was happy with our ceremony the way it was.  We had a Christian ceremony and our pastor let us choose from various options for each of the parts of the service.  We had 3 readings (2 biblical, one secular) and a few hymns.  I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Do you want samples of what I used for the welcome/greeting, vows, exchange of rings words, etc.?

This was our order of the ceremony:

GATHERING
Prelude                 
Processional
Words of Welcome & Introduction
Statement of Purpose
Prayer of Approach
Legal Admonition
Declaration of Intent

WORD
Prayer of Preparation
Hymn
Reading
Reading 2
Meditation (Sermon by the pastor)

ACT OF COVENANTING
Invocation of the Spirit
Exchange of Vows
Exchange of Rings

Declaration of Marriage

Blessing of the Couple

Marriage Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

SENDING FORTH
The Benediction
The Signing of the Register
Presentation of the Couple
Recessional

MerAndTrick

See... this is where we run into problems, and why we're starting from scratch... neither one of us are Christian.  I'm Buddhist and the FH is agnostic.  We have members of all different faiths coming to the wedding, literally you name it, we've got it!  So we want to do something that honors a core belief in a "God" without calling said God any specific names... We want to be inclusive of both of ours, and our friends faith traditions.  

naomikb

I get that.  But most parts of a ceremony can be changed to just exclude references to God/bible.  If you take a Christian ceremony passage, you can just rewrite it.  Inevitably the content of the ceremony is still the same.

You substitute a poem for a biblical reading, and a welcome from the officiant for a prayer.  You can still have music.

If you start with a Christian ceremony (like the outline I gave) then you just adapt each part to suit your needs.  There are also several girls on here who had secular ceremonies who can give you specific wordings.

Avion22

I just want to make a quick point about vows.  Vows are promises.   Telling each other how much you love each other is great, but it's not a promise.   If you want to do this, then I would recommend BEFORE saying your vows you do a "declaration of love."   

It's okay to write your own vows, but you should frame them as promises that you want to make to each other.  And please don't promise to let him have the remote control, or to love him no matter how bald he gets.  These are insulting and usually make guests feel uncomfortable.    The traditional vows (for better, for worse, in sickness and in health) are a good place to start in thinking about the promises you want to make to each other.  By all means re-word them to reflect your specific beliefs.

missegg

Ditto what naomi said. I waver between spiritual and only believing in things that can be scientifically proven (FI is presbyterian), and our officiant (FI's uncle, who is a UCC pastor) was great with rewriting the recommended text. I don't think Jesus Christ is mentioned at all, and God only once or twice. A lot of it was changed to The Spirit (of love/understanding sometimes) and we just went through it line by line and messed around with it until it was how we wanted. I would google a sample ceremony, or multiple ceremonies, and piece them together until you get what you want.

Cony&Ben

Here's a sample secular ceremony:
http://weddings.about.com/od/yourweddingceremony/a/weddingceremony.htm

And here are a bunch of sample readings (religious and secular):
http://www.todays-weddings.com/planning/readings.html

MerAndTrick

Thanks for the links...  There is some good ideas in there that maybe we will draw from. 

 We want something "out of the box"... not the traditional wedding ceremony.  We're not traditional people.  But more than that, we are only going to have 100 people.  There are family members that aren't invited, because we are inviting the people who have meaning to us, our history, our future.  And we want to make sure that the ceremony is as much of a celebration of their involvement in our lives, as it is about us.

So that all said, I don't think we'll be going with anything that follows the traditional wedidng format (processional, "dearly beloved", readings, vows, rings, etc)

In terms of vows... Our vows will be a reflection of us.  They will be funny and meaningful.

Thanks everyone.

tenofcups4me

DH and I wrote our entire ceremony and my ex- and I also wrote our own ceremony. Both were completely secular. I think your best bet is to just google secular wedding ceremonies and see what other people have done. We picked up bits and pieces from a variety of existing ceremonies and also added our own completely unique aspects.

There was no resemblance at all to a traditional Christian ceremony, which makes sense since I'm a non-practicing Jew, but there was also no resemblance to a traditional Jewish ceremony except the breaking of the glass at the end. It wouldn't have felt like a wedding to me without that!

I don't know if indiebride is still active, but there used to be some great ceremonies on their message  board and I pulled heavily from there.

MerAndTrick

We've got a practicing Jew in the bridal party and he's bringing a glass for us to break at the end.  Also, my oldest GF and one of my Bridesmaids is Jamaican so she is ALSO bringing us a broom to jump.

The wedding will either be completely schizo or completely great... LOL

I'll look up indiebride.. thanks for the input!!