multi-religious/cultural mashup issue?

bluelotus13

Hey everyone
I've been designing the ceremony from scratch since he and I are from different spiritual backgrounds. 
I was born and raised in the Kagyu tradition of Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) and grew up around a lot of Eastern traditions and Hindu elements so to me it's a very close-to-home place to be. Because of this, I'll be doing a sort of variation of different aspects that mean something to me and the traits and blessings that he and I both want to experience on our wedding day. 
Now he comes from an Episcopal background and majority of his family are /very/ Christian. What I'm worried about is how to present the ceremony to them since about 90% of the guests will be his family members (when someone gets married EVERYONE comes lol). I've been with him for over six years and his immediate family understands to some extent my religious background, but I don't think anyone else knows that I'm not a Christian and so I would really appreciate any advice on how to approach this. I've already designed the ceremony so that it includes some traditionally Western elements (bridal party on either side, ring exchange, vows spoken to each other, etc) but the overall appearance will definitely /not/ be "normal" I guess haha. 
Should his family be warned beforehand? Or should I include something about it in the invitation? I'm planning on printing a program that more or less describes/explains some of the traditions they will be witnessing, but I'm not getting married for another ten months and am not sure if I should talk to them beforehand.
Thanks for any help! Sorry I rambled XD 

emmyg65

I don't think you need to explain yourself. Putting information in the programs so they understand the rituals is nice, but you don't need to worry about anything else. I'm sure they've been to weddings outside the Episcopal tradition and been fine.

FWIW, we're having a Quaker wedding and put a note about it in our invites as well as on our programs, but that's just because our guests will be invited to participate in the ceremony. If they were just watching, I'd have stuck to the program note.

emilyb213

I like the idea of including a little explanation of some of the traditions you're incorporating. I wouldn't worry too much about having a formal talk with the families and forewarning them. If either of you have parents or grandparents who have set expectations of what a ceremony should be, you could work it in to conversation and give them some details about what your ceremony is going to include. I had a pretty secular ceremony (the Bible was briefly mentioned, but that's as far as the religious talk went), and we did a self-uniting marriage, so we did tell our parents as it came up in conversation what we had planned. However, I did have a little more of an in depth discussion with my very Catholic grandmother. Other than that, we didn't go around announcing it to all of our family members. It also helped that we weren't getting married in a church, so there was minimal expection of a religious ceremony.

heidirs731

I like the idea of explaining the traditions on the program. But I don't think you need to "warn" people ahead of time. This day and age, I don't think it's much of a shock to find a multi-cultural/religion wedding.