What to do about the Unity Candle

missysue_q

So I'm sure this has come up before, but does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the unity candle work? The FI and I were thinking about doing the 'sand ceremony' route...but in all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of it and would so much rather have the candle.
Obviously it's an outdoor wedding ..... any suggestions?
TIA!

deb84

Will your reception be indoors? Maybe you could light the unity candle at the reception before you cut the cake or something.  We are doing sand.

danieliza1127

One wedding I was in that was outdoors, the couple had a unity candle but they had a hurricane vase over it.  It still blew out a few times.

kelly&wayne

We're getting married outside.  We are doing the sand thing.  I agree the candle can be much nicer, but you can make the sand ceremony just as nice with cool vases for the sand, nice colors and wording.

cschuma2

I had an outdoor ceremony and we did the traditional unity candle.  I sometimes see the mothers light the outside candles at the start of the ceremony.  We skipped this part as we doubted that the candles would stay lit that long.  When it came time for the unity candle, we each lit our own candle and together lit the middle candle.... and it stayed lit until the end of our ceremony (probably another 5 minutes).

I would suggest using a hurricane even though we did not.

We just went into it with the idea that we liked what the candle represented, but if it did not stay lit that we were going to laugh at about it.  Neither of us are superstitious or would have taken the candle not staying lit as "a sign"... so it just wasn't an issue for us.

missysue_q

Thanks ladies! Good idea cschuma about skipping the mother part....I think we will go that route.

Spangs

I heard of a bride using a candle that used fuel and a wick (like tiki tourches do) but I don't know where you would get one that was attractive.

AngelaOct11

We used oil lamps.  You can find some really ncie ones online.  Our taper candles that our moms lit did blow out.  When it came to the point for us to light the unity candle our moms came up and lit a match and gave it to us :-)  That worked fine for us.  I wanted the unity candle and not the sand.  I think the sand looks like kids sand art.  Here is a picture of our candle.