Ceremony Help

Unknown092113

My FI and I are currently having a difficult time coming to a compromise on the wording of the Ceremony. We are having the owner of the facility do our Ceremony (because it was part of our package) however we are running into is the fact that HIM and HIS family have to have it WAY religious. ME and MY family are NOT religious and do not want it TOO religious.

Does anyone have any wording that either they are going to use or have used that might help be a good 'middle' for us? Any suggestion or help would be great!

Kacin+Daniel

(First of all, I'm no expert, but my initial reaction is that this issue is going to reach beyond your ceremony wording. I would try to initiate a conversation with your man about what effect your spiritual differences are going to have on your life together.)

IMHO, the solution for this problem, as well as other conflicts that might arise in your lives together, will come when you and Mr. Meli.Mel can find spiritual/religious elements or concepts that you can both subscribe to. My FI and I were raised with different religions as well, and this is how we found our compromise. We basically sat down and looked at what our individual priorities were. After boiling it down, we found we had these priorities in common: Kindness toward other people (all of them), a sense of gratitude for our blessings, and demanding the best out of ourselves and each other. Nobody is going to agree on absolutely everything, especially when it comes to religion. So you have to focus on what you CAN agree on.

For instance, your man may feel that his faith in Jesus Christ is a priority. (I know you said religious, not Christian- but this is just an example.) You described yourself as not religious, but since you're getting married, you have already demonstrated a sense of faith in your relationship with him. So maybe you can find a compromise by having a ceremony that focuses on faith itself, rather than having to apply it only to Jesus.

I have one other idea, this is a bit more of a quick fix. Our families will definitely be expecting a heavy religious element, but we don't want that. (Just a different version of your conflict with your FI.) To fix this conflict, we've decided to put a statement in at the beginning of the ceremony that more or less says that "God is Love." For the rest of the ceremony, we will make references to "Love" being the driving force in our lives, guiding our decisions, sheltering us from the storm, etc. That way, my FI's Great Aunt Petunia will feel that God was a major part of our ceremony, while people of other faiths will also be able to relate. In other words, use terms that are used to loosely refer to religion but can also be secular (faith, love, joy, etc.) thus leaving the wording up to interpretation. After all, we hear what we want to hear. Good luck!

chao_sweetie

My FI and I first went through it. He is Catholic and I am a Baptist- Christian - Spiritualist(?) or something like that. I  was shocked when he agreed with me that weddings were too boring and want to spice it up. We want to do our own vows, etc. His parents will probably hate it, butit's our wedding - not theirs.  Tell your hubby that you want your wedding to be meaningful to the both of you, so try to compromise on the flow of the ceremony.