5 Ways To Personalize Your Wedding Ceremony

 

There are tons of options available to today’s brides and grooms to really give their nuptials a personal touch. Whether you’re going to the local courthouse or you’re having a million dollar affair, there are ceremonies and traditions you can include to make your day as special as it should be. Let’s take a look at some rituals to consider as you plan the details of your wedding ceremony.

Sand Ceremony

A new twist on the traditional custom of lighting a unity candle is the sand ceremony. In this ritual, the bride and the groom each take a jar of sand and together pour their sand into a larger vessel. This not only symbolizes the joining of the two, but also once the sand has been poured together, it cannot be separated, so it also symbolizes the eternal bond of marriage. Couples will often use two different colors of sand, so you can see the mixture of the sands. Other couples use sand or soil from their childhood homes or from other significant places in their lives and relationship.

Warming the Rings

Exchanging rings is a time honored wedding tradition. A unique ritual to include in the exchanging of your wedding bands  is called a warming or blessing of the rings. In this ceremony, the bands are passed among the guests, allowing each person a moment to silently give well wishes or to say a prayer for the couple and their marriage. If you have a larger number of guests, you can have only family, or just the first couple rows bless your bands.

Sharing Wine

Some couples are including a sharing of wine ceremony as a part of their wedding service. In this, the glass you drink from is a symbol for the cup of life. Drinking together is a promise to share whatever the future holds. The sweetness of the future and the drink is that much sweeter, because you are experiencing it together and the bitterness of the drink and life is less so, because you have each other to lean on.

Alternative Processional/Recessional Music

An easy way to give your wedding a personal touch is to forgo the traditional processional and recessional tunes and to choose your own music. This allows you to interject some of your personality, both as individuals and as a couple, into the ceremony. Many brides have taken to having the groom select the music that they will walk down the aisle to, creating a personal and special moment for the groom to always cherish. More and more, couples are using more upbeat music that is representative of them and their relationship as recessional music, rather than the traditional “Wedding March”.

Unity Bowl Ceremony

A unique ritual to include your family in the ceremony is the unity bowl ceremony. Grandparents, parents and even siblings or children can all participate. Each family member and the bride and groom all have a different color of marbles and places them into a large bowl. The marbles mixed together, symbolize the way all of these important people have colored the couple’s lives and made them the unique people they each are. After the ceremony, the unity bowl can serve as a keepsake to be displayed in the couple’s home.

These are only some of the many different wedding customs you can include that will personalize your ceremony. No matter where or how you choose to get married, your wedding day is an important life event and you’ll want the ceremony to be representative of you as individuals and as a couple.