The Proper Wedding
09-11-2009, 11:40 AM
Our wedding is in one year. We are planning a mix between a traditional wedding and a medieval wedding. Anyone who knows me can tell you I can't do anything normal, I have to be different. But there's certain parts of the wedding I feel I would regret if I didn't do it traditionally. For example, tho it's mostly focused on medieval decorations and things like that, I insist on buying my dress at David's Bridal, which obviously doesn't have medieval dresses. The whole wedding party will be dressed like a normal wedding, tho my colors are all dark, black, plum and burgundy. A lot of the decorations will be medieval looking. The ceremony will take place outside by a river. It should be really pretty and peaceful!
Here is where I would like input from anyone who has thoughts on the subject. This is a christian wedding. We like the idea of the unity ceremony part. Naturally we gravitated toward the unity candle, since everywhere that has wedding supplies has many different sets of unity candles. But after thinking it over, we decided not to even try. It's an outside ceremony, we fear after our mothers light the outside candles, they may get blown out by the wind before we get the chance to light the center candle. So we did some brainstorming to find some other type of unity ceremony to take the candle's place. We are thinking about doing a wine ceremony instead. We thought this might look more medieval. It's basically just like the unity candle. Both mothers pour into their own glass from a bottle of wine, one mother pours white wine, the other red. When it's time to do the unity ceremony, my fiance and I will take those 2 glasses of wine and combine them into a larger glass, and the 2 colors will mix and make pink, if I'm not mistaken they call this Rose (with an accent over the e). This symbolizes 2 families being joined and becoming one through our union.
But we don't stop there. A friend of mine suggested a handfasting, which was done in medieval times. We had issues with this one, since it is a current custom in a Pagan marriage (my friend who suggested is Pagan, tho he suggested it because he knew it was done before his religion started using it). Technically in medieval times, it was done, but not during the wedding ceremony, it was done at the betrothal, similar to our engagements today. It was done as part of the promise to get married in the future. So I was having issues because I didn't want to bring it up to my pastor until I had prove that it wasn't just done in Pagan weddings, since this is a Christian wedding. I wanted him to be comfortable doing it. So my friend who suggested it did eventually find a website from a christian priest who does do christian handfastings in weddings as part of the unity ceremony. But let's put that idea aside for a moment.
I had found this unity ceremony which involves braiding a cord. The husband will hold the knot while the wife braids the cord. The 3 strands represent the husband, wife and God. While I liked this idea, my fiance and I have talked about instead of it representing the 3 of us, we would have the 3 strands represent just God (The Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit).
Now back to the handfasting. We would use the cord, which represents God, that we braided, and use that during the handfasting. My pastor would tie our right hands together with the cord. We would be "bound together by God".
It seems like a long unity ceremony, incorporating all 3 ceremonies into one. But we like it because it first brings our families together and then brings him and I together with/by God. I suppose we could do the wine after the handfasting too. We are having a Baptist wedding, which generally take about 15 once the Pastor starts talking. So I think it would be ok to do all this. We really like the symbolism of all of this. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? We haven't talked to our Pastor about it yet. We just thought about all of this within the last few days. We're hoping he's comfortable with it all.
I would like input from others if you don't mind tho! Thank you for reading, and thanks in advance to any replies! :)
Here is where I would like input from anyone who has thoughts on the subject. This is a christian wedding. We like the idea of the unity ceremony part. Naturally we gravitated toward the unity candle, since everywhere that has wedding supplies has many different sets of unity candles. But after thinking it over, we decided not to even try. It's an outside ceremony, we fear after our mothers light the outside candles, they may get blown out by the wind before we get the chance to light the center candle. So we did some brainstorming to find some other type of unity ceremony to take the candle's place. We are thinking about doing a wine ceremony instead. We thought this might look more medieval. It's basically just like the unity candle. Both mothers pour into their own glass from a bottle of wine, one mother pours white wine, the other red. When it's time to do the unity ceremony, my fiance and I will take those 2 glasses of wine and combine them into a larger glass, and the 2 colors will mix and make pink, if I'm not mistaken they call this Rose (with an accent over the e). This symbolizes 2 families being joined and becoming one through our union.
But we don't stop there. A friend of mine suggested a handfasting, which was done in medieval times. We had issues with this one, since it is a current custom in a Pagan marriage (my friend who suggested is Pagan, tho he suggested it because he knew it was done before his religion started using it). Technically in medieval times, it was done, but not during the wedding ceremony, it was done at the betrothal, similar to our engagements today. It was done as part of the promise to get married in the future. So I was having issues because I didn't want to bring it up to my pastor until I had prove that it wasn't just done in Pagan weddings, since this is a Christian wedding. I wanted him to be comfortable doing it. So my friend who suggested it did eventually find a website from a christian priest who does do christian handfastings in weddings as part of the unity ceremony. But let's put that idea aside for a moment.
I had found this unity ceremony which involves braiding a cord. The husband will hold the knot while the wife braids the cord. The 3 strands represent the husband, wife and God. While I liked this idea, my fiance and I have talked about instead of it representing the 3 of us, we would have the 3 strands represent just God (The Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit).
Now back to the handfasting. We would use the cord, which represents God, that we braided, and use that during the handfasting. My pastor would tie our right hands together with the cord. We would be "bound together by God".
It seems like a long unity ceremony, incorporating all 3 ceremonies into one. But we like it because it first brings our families together and then brings him and I together with/by God. I suppose we could do the wine after the handfasting too. We are having a Baptist wedding, which generally take about 15 once the Pastor starts talking. So I think it would be ok to do all this. We really like the symbolism of all of this. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? We haven't talked to our Pastor about it yet. We just thought about all of this within the last few days. We're hoping he's comfortable with it all.
I would like input from others if you don't mind tho! Thank you for reading, and thanks in advance to any replies! :)