Traditional Church Wedding Question

daisymom0317

Hi everyone,
Got a couple of questions. I'm trying to get my details in order for the program.

1. When the preacher is reading Bible verses and saying other quotes, do we (me and my fiance) provide him with what we want read, or does he get to choose what is read?
2. We're doing the sand ceremony thing instead of the unity candle. What is supposed to be said during this time? Do we tell the preacher what to say?

Thanks for any suggestions you may have!

pgcp

You need to speak with the pastor/priest who is performing your ceremony.  There are WAY too many variations between individual churches to be able to answer your questions. 

harpsdesire

Often your pastor will give you some ideas of verses he likes for a wedding and ask for input/give options.  He has veto power on anything he does NOT want to read or feel is appropriate, but you can make requests and generally talk it over/decide together.

It does depend quite a bit on the church and the person, some are more flexible than others, some have things that MUST be said, and some personalize quite a bit.

For sand ceremony, there is often a few words said along the lines of "this mingled sand represents two lives combining.  The bond between bridesname and groomsname can not be severed, it is as impossible as to separate the grains of sand, one color from the other."  Then music plays while you do the sand thing.

clcranda

It really depends on what church you are getting married in and who is marrying you.  Our pastor let us do our own thing, what readings, etc.  When I get home tonight I can PM you our sand ceremony wording.  FI found it online and it is beautiful!

daisymom0317

Thank you all so much. My fiance is a member of the church where we're getting married, so I don't know how strict they are. It's a big church, and they were pretty strict with their guidelines in approving us for the wedding, so my hunch is they will probably be strict about this too, but we will ask the preacher.
Thanks again.
And to clcranda- if you could send me the sand ceremony wording tonight, that would be fantastic!!!

sweetredhead

We discussed the verses with the minister. I wasn't sure on what I wanted except not love is patient ... He also worked with me on ideas for our congregation candles. (we did this instead of unity stuff). He also had to ok all our songs. He allowed us to use secular but listened to them first.

AurorasEnvy

I agree, I'd discuss with whoever is marrying you.  Our officiant had a lot of good ideas to choose from (although we could have picked whatever we wanted).