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Quaker wedding traditions?

[Deleted User][Deleted User]
in Wedding Customs & Traditions Forum
My FH is Quaker. Most of his friends are Quaker and we have attended Quaker weddings together. Of the two of us he's more in tune with his faith. I'm agnostic and think the idea of the traditional silent worship of a Quaker wedding is beautiful... but I always imagined my wedding to be more Protestant in structure (ie, with a wedding party, officiant, and a giving away of the bride). I've been racking my brain to try to integrate the two... has anyone heard of this type of hybrid ceremony?
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Re: Quaker wedding traditions?

  • DramaGeekDramaGeek member
    5 Love Its First Comment
    edited June 2012
    I haven't, but I think there'd be no problem in creating your own hybrid if you're both on board with that.  I'd probably start by figuring the top 3 things that you each must have in your ceremony and then see if you can figure out how to integrate those.  For instance, if for you it's the wedding party, giving away of the bride, and vows, then you'd have to try to fit those together with what is on his list.

    One thing you might be able to do is kind of a guided ceremony, like a guided meditation.  Have the processional, then have someone (an officiant or master of ceremony or whomever) explain what a Quaker ceremony is like and why they follow those traditions.  This might be especially helpful if you have a good portion of your guest list that has never been to a Quaker ceremony.  Then you can do the silent worship ceremony.

    Another Quaker tradition that H and I absolutely loved was the idea that every guest is a witness to the marriage and they all sign the marriage document.  We had a beautiful one made for us by Terri at Documents and Designs (www.documentsanddesigns.com).  Here it is


    We framed it to hang in our home.  That's something else you might want to think about.  We did that instead of a guest book and we love it.  I guarantee we got a lot more bang for our buck than a traditional guest book too, since ours is now art in our home.

    Have you ever read the book "I Take Thee, Serenity" ?  If not, I highly reccomend it.  It's fiction, but it has great information on the Quaker ceremony and the why's of everything.  It might help you distill which elements you need/want to keep.

    ETA - some Quaker churches now have both programmed and unprogrammed worship.  That's basically what I'm thinking you could do - start and end with programmed worship but have Open Worship in the middle.
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  • Simply FatedSimply Fated member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer Name Dropper
    Oh I love the idea of every guest signing the marriage certificate! I clicked this link because I was curious... I don't know about any Quaker traditions and was hoping to hear some good ones and I am not disappointed!
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  • daria24daria24 member
    First Comment First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer
    Where are you getting married? We had a Quaker-style wedding in PA where we self-united, no officiant. It was really amazing to be able to pronounce ourselves married. But I believe PA and CO are the only states that allow that. But if you are getting married in another state, you could always ask your officiant if you would be able to pronounce yourselves married at the end of the ceremony.
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