Category: traditions

Unity Ceremonies? Do I need one?

Published on by angelaportLeave a comment

All you need is love and … a unity ceremony?

 

A unity ceremony is an act you can incorporate into your wedding ceremony which symbolises the joining of two separate lives, the idea is that as individuals you are both special and just as important separate, but when joined together you create something unique and beautiful. A unity ceremony  can also be used to symbolise the joining together of two families, if one or both of you already have children, either together or separately.

You do not have to do a unity ceremony, and you should (in my personal opinion) only include one if it is something that absolutely speaks to you.

There are a few different options, that I’ll outline below, and by no means is this the complete list, and there may be a suggestion on this list that sparks an idea with you and your loved one for something completely original.  Go for it I say!

Wine/Beer Ceremony – You each choose a wine (red and white work well), but obviously two that work well together, and you each pour a small amount from your individual glass into a centre glass and then both take turns taking a sip (or a gulp) from the center glass. This also works extremely well with beer if you’re not a wine fan.

Love Letter and Wine Box – You choose a bottle of favourite wine (or beer) and both add love letters to each other (that you have previously written) into a box, to be opened on your one year anniversary.  It’s a nice reminder of what you were both feeling on your wedding day.

Elephant Toothpaste – It’s a funny sounding science experiment, involving you both adding chemicals together to create a pretty spectacular explosion of types.  Awesome to add for a bit of drama to your ceremony.

Unity Candle – Use a large candle and then both the bride and groom light the candle using their own individual candles. This is probably the most common unity ceremony performed at weddings. Important to remember to use hurricane lamps if you are having your wedding ceremony outside, to protect your flame from going out.

Reverse Candle Lighting – The reverse candle lighting ceremony starts with the bride and groom lighting their individual candles from a single/joint one and then proceeding to then light candles held by their bridal party, who then help to light each guests candle.  You would end up with a beautiful sea of candle light, each lit from the same candle.

Sand Ceremony – Both the bride and groom (and children if they are being included) pour different coloured sands into a central vessel, creating a pretty pattern. Each different coloured sand represents a different person. If both the bride and groom are from different areas, you could use sand from your hometown beaches.

Hand Fasting – Hand fasting is a Celtic tradition which involves binding the hands of a couple with ribbon or cord either before, during or after reciting your vows, it is used as a way to symbolise your commitment and devotion to one another.

Tree planting – All about the environment and everything green? Then you may want to include a tree planting as a way of symbolising your union.  You can choose any type of plant/tree you like, and then the tree can be displayed in your home afterwards.

Unity sandwich – You like peanut butter, and he likes jam, perfect, use these two spreads (or any other favourite sandwich fillings) to create the perfect sandwich.

Jumping the broom -Jumping the broom is a time honoured tradition where the bride and groom actually jump over a broom.  The act symbolises a new beginning and the sweeping away of the past.

Hand washing ceremony – You and your groom wash your hands in a large bowl of water. The washing of your hands symbolises the fresh start that you are embarking upon in your marriage, while having your hands dried by your spouse symbolises the act of being vulnerable to each other, and letting yourself be cared for by another.

Mixing Oil and Herbs – If you’re both foodies, then you could mix herbs and oil together as part of your unity ceremony.

Creating art together – Purchase a large canvas, and then each of you choose a colour that represents you, and then you create a painting together using the two different colours. The upside is you now have a meaningful piece of art work to display in your home after.

Lock unity – Each of you choose a lock with a key, you both place your wedding band on the lock and use the key to lock it before the ceremony.  This symbolises your separate and individual lives, during the ceremony, you use the keys to open the locks, exchange your wedding bands and then entwine the two locks and lock them together, symbolising your commitment forever.

Unity hour glass – Very similar to a sand ceremony, you use a decorative hour glass to pour your separate sand into. Plus side is that you now have a useful item to use in your home.

Brand – For those of you farmers, or those getting married on a farm, you could have a brand made of your initials, either as two different brands that you could join together on the day or one brand with both your initials together, that you can brand a piece of decorative wood together. It would be a pretty impressive part of your ceremony.

Fishermans Knot – The Fishermans knot is also know as the ‘lovers knot’ It is made from two cords which represent you as individuals, as you fasten the two cords together this act represents the joining of your two lives in marriage. Once the knot is completed then this represents your future strong, and only becoming stronger under pressure.

As you can see there are a multitude of different options if you are thinking about including a unity ceremony as part of your wedding ceremony, and maybe this list may spark some ideas for something original to you as a couple.  The options are endless.

 

 

 

 

 

Date Nights

Published on by angelaportLeave a comment

All you need is love and … date nights.

So you’re in the throes of wedding planning, it’s stressful, time consuming, expensive, he’s not agreeing with you, Great Aunty Fanny is trying to tell you what to do! You’re getting a bit overwhelmed, you have a job, maybe some kids, a mortgage and a wedding to plan, aaaargggh!

It’s time to remember who you’re planning to marry and why!

It’s time for a date night.

Date nights are a great way to re-connect with each other, and remember that you guys had fun together, before the wedding planning and the kids, and Great Aunty Fanny. And the good news is they don’t have to be expensive, (which is awesome if you’re saving manically for a wedding) it is after all about just spending time together. You don’t even have to leave the house (which is great if you don’t have a babysitter for the little people) And while a dinner and movie, is cool, if that’s what floats your boat, there’s heaps of other ideas for some different date nights.

Here’s a list of ideas

  • Learn to dance together – you could include this as part of your wedding planning, but learning a dance for your first dance, or try something completely different, hip hop any-one?
  • Night classes – great opportunity to learn a new skill/language together.
  • Walk – just go for a stroll around your neighbour-hood, it’s free!
  • Go out for dessert/coffee – a way less cheaper option than a full meal.
  • Cook a new meal/dish together – choose an interesting/new/yummy sounding meal off the internet, or a magazine/cookbook. And prepare the meal together, put on some music, pour a glass of something nice, and enjoy each other’s company. Bonus is you actually have a meal to share together at the end of it.

 

  • Do something touristy – is there something in your town/city that all the tourists visit, but you’ve never been, check it out.
  • Head out of town – just jump in the car and drive, stop along the way for fish n chips or an ice-cream.
  • Picnic – prepare a picnic and head to a local beach or park.
  • Coffee and a walk on the beach – grab a takeaway coffee and head to the beach for a stroll.
  • Board game at home – dust off the old monopoly game (or whatever game takes your fancy), even a card game. Grab some snacks, a bottle of something and enjoy the game.
  • Visit the local pet shop or SPCA – take some time to play with the animals.
  • Pot luck dinner – organise a pot-luck dinner, that way you don’t have to do all the work, and it’s cheaper and have a adult dinner with adult conversation.
  • Star gaze together – super cheap and super romantic. Lay a blanket on the ground and gaze at the sky. Of course there’s an app for making sure you actually know what you are looking at (Nightsky)
  • Surprise – One of the couple is in charge of organising the date night.
  • Share items on your bucket list – it may inspire future date nights.
  • Brunch – Brunch may be easier to wrangle a babysitter for, and will generally be cheaper than a dinner out.
  • Karaoke – You either love it or hate it. If you love it hit the local karaoke club and sing a duet together.
  • Hire a kayak – Take a trip around your local harbour together. You can usually hire kayaks by the hour reasonably cheaply.
  • Quiz night – Check out your local bar for when their local quiz night is. Form a team with others and be amazed at the obscure general knowledge your partner has.

 

In the midst of wedding planning, or just life in general, it’s so easy to get caught up in just getting through the day. It is so easy to unintentionally disconnect from each other. We live in a society where FOMO (fear of missing out) means a lot of us are glued to our phones/laptops and not paying attention to the person sitting on the other end of the couch.

Who says what at the wedding.

Published on by angelaportLeave a comment

All you need is love and … a run down on wedding speeches.

 

Wedding speeches can scare the beejezus out of even the most confident person, and it can be the part of the wedding day that stresses people out the most.

There is a list of who traditionally performs speeches at a wedding, but this is really just a guideline and many couples choose to add extra people to the list, or lots of couples do away with the speeches altogether, knowing that sometimes people just want to get into their dinner and dessert and then the dancing part of the wedding. Fair enough I say.

Here’s a brief description of the traditional list of wedding speeches.

It is your Master of Ceremonies role (among others, see that list here The role of a Master of Ceremony) to seemlessly introduce the speech section of the evening, and to introduce each speaker, and then thank them afterwards.

 

Father of the bride – (or whoever gave the bride away, not always the father)

  • Welcomes and thanks the guests for coming.
  • Expresses how proud he and his wife, are of their daughter.
  • Welcomes the groom into the family.
  • Possibly shares one or two stories about the bride.
  • Shares words of wisdom and good wishes for the couple.
  • Proposes a toast to the couple.

Groom

  • Thanks his father-in-law for his kind words and the toast.
  • Thanks the brides parents for all their work raising the woman of his dreams (his new wife) and all their help with the wedding
  • Thanks the guests for coming and for the wedding gifts.
  • Acknowledges his best man for all his help, and any other helpers.
  • Acknowledges the bridesmaids, and thanks them for all their help with the wedding, and proposes a toast to them.

Best Man

  • Adds to the comments about the bridesmaid, lamenting how great they look today.
  • Congratulates the groom, on his good fortune, in marrying his new wife.
  • Possibly shares a story about the bride and groom, maybe about how they met.
  • Reads any messages to the bride and groom, from guests that couldn’t make it. Traditionally this was in the form of telegrams, and letters, these days it’s most likely to be texts and/or emails.

Invited guests

  • There may be other guests that have asked before hand to speak, or who you would like to include. Make sure that you have a general idea of the content of their speech, and that you communicate to them how long they have to speak. I would not recommend the Master of Ceremony, ask if anyone else would like to speak, on the fly, it opens you up to Great Uncle Barry, who’s had one too many beersies ramble on, or say something inappropriate.

This is by no way an exhaustive list, and it is very common for couples to include mother of the bride/groom, the bride herself, and a bridesmaid/maid of honour.

Make sure all your speakers know their time limit, say 5 mins, so they can tailor their speech accordingly.

I would not recommend forcing any-one to speak if they absolutely loath public speaking, it will either cause stress for the person, possibly stress your relationship with the person and probably lead to a bad speech, better to address everyone before hand, asking them if they are comfortable doing so (don’t assume, they may not have even thought they had to speak)and if they are not comfortable, then ask someone else or not have them speak at all.

Who’s walking down the aisle?

Published on by angelaportLeave a comment

All you need is love and … someone to walk down the aisle with or not!

The whole wedding process is steeped in so much tradition, and one of the traditions is the father of the bride walking her down the aisle and ‘giving her away’. It is said that the custom dates back to a time when the daughter was considered to be property and the groom had to pay a price before he was permitted to marry his intended. Another theory is the ‘giving away’ symbolised the transition of authority from the bride’s father to her husband as she moved from the family home into her married home. Today the act of ‘giving away’ the bride is seen more as a symbolic blessing by the parents of the marriage to the groom.

If the idea of walking down the aisle scares the bejesus out of you, or just doesn’t sit right with you, either because you don’t want the attention, or the traditional father/bride relationship or non-relationship does not fit the circumstances, then there are a number of alternatives to the whole ‘walking down the aisle” Instead of the traditional view of ‘giving away’ you could think of it as the person is supporting you through this life transistion.

Someone else

It’s extremely common for a bride to choose someone other than her father to walk her down the aisle: mother, grandparents, siblings, good friends, both mum and dad, own children and even the family dog.

 

Walking down together

I have seen this done at a wedding, one of the reasons being that the groom was very shy, and didn’t want the focus before the ceremony to be on him. There is something very sweet, and I imagine, reassuring to walk into your wedding ceremony hand in hand.

Go Solo

If you feel confident and comfortable enough, just mossey up the aisle yourself.

Meet your groom halfway

Start the journey by yourself, or even with someone else and meet your groom halfway up the aisle.

Make a bouquet as you walk

Have someone give flowers out to your guests either the guests sitting on the end of rows, or maybe close family and friends, before the ceremony and gather these flowers up into a bouquet, as you walk down the aisle. It is a nice, meaningful way to include some of your guests in the ceremony.

 

Ceremony circle or spiral

There’s no rules that say your ceremony space has to have a straight up and down aisle. You can create a spiral shape using your chairs, and walk along this spiral. This gives you a chance to see all your guests on your journey. Alternatively create a circle shape, and just leave a small hole for you to enter into, and then you and your groom will be encircled by your loved ones.

No walking down the aisle

If you don’t want to walk down the aisle at all, you can just mingle with your guests before the ceremony begins and then just move to the front when it’s time to start. One bride I know had alot of fun running around with the kids, barefoot before her wedding started.

Have the guests enter after you

Keep your ceremony space private and closed prior to the wedding starting, and then position yourselves in your desired spots either with bridal party or not and then open the doors and invite your guests in to be seated.

Lead a processional

Lead your guests, you could even use a musician, to your ceremony space with a processional. When you get there, make your way to the front and let your guests be seated before you begin.

Enter from the side

Enter the ceremony at the same time from different sides, takes the emphasis off the bride, and there’s no need for an aisle at all.

Two aisles

Create your ceremony space with two aisles, and both walk down your own aisle. This is very popular with same-sex weddings, and can be appropriate when parents don’t have any daughters and want to walk their son down the aisle.

I think there are more than enough options if you don’t want to do the traditional walk down the aisle. Just remember it’s your day, so do it your way.