Wedding ceremonies are just like life: we’re often celebrating great joy while at the very same time grieving a great loss. But ultimately we're faced with a choice: do we ignore the loss, or do we acknowledge it? This is the choice our wedding couples face as they plan their wedding ceremony. They may be grieving a friend or family member who has passed away recently. Or feeling the absence of a parent or grandparents who passed some time ago. Or a pet who died. And it doesn't just need to...
Category: Officiating Best Practices
The Wedding Officiant’s Formula for Every Unity Ritual
A unity ritual is a familiar element of any wedding ceremony. You might have heard of the more common ones like handfasting or sand mixing. The tricky part for wedding officiants is that there are dozens - maybe hundreds - of unity rituals. And your couple might ask you to include any number of them in their wedding ceremony. And that's where the challenge comes in. When you conduct your ceremony planning meeting with your couple, they'll tell you they want the more familiar core elements of a...
How To Transition From One Wedding Ceremony Element To The Next
Wedding officiants have one major concern when writing the ceremony: "What do I say?" And it's not just the speech or the vows or other ceremony elements. Officiants just like you are worried about how to flow from one part of the ceremony to the next. This comes from our tendency to think of the ceremony as a brick wall. The elements are the building blocks, and then... But don't those blocks need mortar between them? If there's nothing holding it all together, the whole thing falls apart,...
5 Questions to Ask Your Same-Sex Couple About Their Wedding Ceremony
Even if you’ve officiated five hundred wedding ceremonies, the very first time a same-sex couple asks you to officiate their wedding ceremony, it can feel like your first time all over again. I hear it from experienced officiants all the time: “What’s different about a same-sex couple’s wedding ceremony? What do I need to know? I’m so worried I’ll mess this up or inadvertently offend my couple. Help!” The good news is, no one will be more understanding than your same-sex couple. Chances are,...
How to Choose the Best Songs for The Wedding Ceremony
The right music is crucial for setting the tone in your wedding ceremony. There are lots of feels in a wedding ceremony, and the right songs complement the emotions of the moment. The wrong songs? Well… the opposite. If you don’t believe me, just go watch those YouTube videos where someone swapped out John Williams’ score when Darth Vader enters. Or the other one that completely removed the music for the final Star Wars medal-awards scene. Music really does make all the difference. It can be...
The 5 Essential Questions to Ask Your First-Time Wedding Officiant
You asked your friend or relative to officiate your wedding ceremony! They’ve never done it before, but they said yes! You’re so excited! You walk away feeling great. But how does your first-time officiant feel - that person you love so much and hand-picked for this assignment? I’m here to tell you: they have a different emotion. First of all: they feel honoured. No worries there. And they probably told you that when they agreed to officiate your wedding! But they also feel scared. And lost....
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