Ceremony Traditions and Readings

Whether you are having a religious or non-religious ceremony, there are many traditions out there that you can incorporate into your ceremony.

Vows

While each of us officiate differently, here is the jest of what the vows will most likely sound like:
Amanda, do you take Roland to be your husband, your constant friend, your faithful partner as your love this day forward?
Do you offer him your solemn vow to be a faithful partner in sickness and in health, through good times and bad?
Do you promise to love, honor, respect and support him in all his goals and ambitions; to cherish him as long as you both shall live?

Traditions

Call to the Winds – The Red River Gorge is rich in Native American heritage.  From the Woodland Indians to the Shawnee, Native Americans have an intense closeness to Mother Nature.  It is custom to start ceremonies with inviting the winds into the circle.  This is a lovely ceremony and a nice way to invite Mother Nature to bless your relationship.

Warming of the Rings – A great way to include your wedding guest into the ceremony.  In the beginning of the ceremony, the officiant will hand over the rings to the first set of guest to his right. The guest will each hold the rings and give them a silent blessing and pass it on to the next guest.  When the time comes for the ring exchange, the rings will saturated with the love of your friends and family.

Hand Fasting – The way we do our hand fasting ceremony is a little different than the traditional Celtic version.  We have four ropes, each a different color representing the four elements of nature as well as the four elements of a relationship.  The groom holds one end of the rope while the bride braids them together.  The officiant then has the bride and groom hold hands and he wraps the rope around them.  They recite their vows with the hands bound together.  It’s a lovely tradition.

God’s Knot – “The Cord of Three Strands” – three ropes will be used.  A gold to symbolize Christ.  A purple to represents the groom.  The white represents the bride.  They are braided together by the bride while the officiant explains the symbolism through words and bible verses.

Sand Ceremony – The bride and groom provide three clear containers.  Two smaller container will hold the colored sand representing themselves.  They will pour the sand into the larger glass container creating a beautiful piece of sand art.  The blending colors of the Unity Sand Ceremony symbolize the bringing together of two lives into one. Seperately, the sands symbolize everything that the bride and groom have been in the past.  Poured together they represent the combining into the future.  Once the two or more sand colors are poured into the unity vase, they can never be put back into their separate vases. They are forever entwined and interconnected just as the lives of you and your spouse are joined.  Some couples prefer to leave a small amount of sand in their individual sand vases to show that even though they now function as one, they remain individuals.

Tree Planting Ceremony – The couple will provide a small tree in a planter for the ceremony.  At some point, they will each pour some dirt into the planter representing their growth as a couple.  Later, they will plant the tree at their home.  Planting a tree to celebrate a marriage is an ancient tradition that is shared by numerous cultures around the world.  Click Here for more information regarding the Tree Planting Ceremony.

Readings

Having  a wedding guest recite a reading adds a nice touch to any ceremony.  Here are a few that I like.  If you have something to add to these, lemme know and I’ll add it to this page!

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”  Song of Solomon 6:3

……………………………..

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

………………………………

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… so what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”

From the movie, “Shall We Dance?”

……………………………..

A MARRIAGE
By Michael Blumenthal

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

……………………………….

The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.

Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.
I like this Dinosaur thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny.
He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.

I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur, thought the Dinosaur. She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice.
She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.

But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
He is also overly fond of things.
Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of things?

But her mind skips from here to there so quickly thought the Dinosaur. She is also uncommonly keen on shopping.
Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?

I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for things, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. For they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.

I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping, thought the Dinosaur. For she fills our life with beautiful thoughts and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.

Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old.
Look at them.
Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.

And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.
For the sun is warm.
And the world is a beautiful place

…………………………………

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.

………………………….

What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.