All Photographs by Kelly Prizel Photography
One of my favorite wedding bloggers (sadly, I can’t remember which one… but I bet it was Meg at apracticalwedding, she was my wedding planning guru through the whole process) said that a personal, moving ceremony sets the scene for the entire wedding. She seemed to think that it didn’t really matter what happened after the ceremony because if people felt like they had just played a part in something deeply moving and sacred, they would experience the wedding as a wonderful event, no matter what kind of table linens or music or favors there were at the reception. That bit of advice really stuck with me and looking back on our wedding I think it is absolutely true.
We put a lot of effort into making sure that our ceremony was as personal as possible.We wanted to partake in traditional rituals (vows, rings, readings, music, pronouncement, etc), but in a way that reflected our values and our relationship. And because of that planning work even the two very big things that went wrong (the torential downpour that forced our wedding inside and the fact that our minister (my lesbian aunt) fell ill and could not officiate), didn’t make a bit of difference to us in the moment.
So, here are the things that made our ceremony reflect us:
1. The music. Throughout the planning process, my friend and very talented singer/songwriter Kelly McFarling kept popping into my head. We were lucky enough to have her sing and play (on her banjo) an original song, “Reach” (you can hear it on her myspace page if you’d like) accompanied by another good friend of ours on the guitar. She also played our processional and recessional on the banjo.
2. The ceremony script: I was lucky enough to stumble upon Mrs. Cherry Pie’s hand-writen ceremony script on WeddingBee (before the blog was sold to e-Harmony’s parent company and I quit reading it because of e-Harmony’s homophbic policies). We both really liked Mrs. Cherry Pie’s script and assumed that we’d write something similar, but in the end we liked it so much that we used it almost verbatim (aside from writing our own vows). My aunt, our officiant until the last minute, made her own tweaks to it once we handed it over to her. (My aunt’s partner was able to fill in for her at the last minute becuase of her illness — although her partner is not a minister, she had, strangely enough, also performed many marriages and commitment ceremonies over the years — I can’t believe how lucky we were to have in our back pocket.)
3. The Reading: My grandmother is a poet and several months before the wedding we asked her to write a poem for the occassion, which she spent many weeks working on. She also had a graphic designer friend of hers make the poem look pretty and printed out a bunch of copies for anyone who wanted to take it home with them.
4. The Flags!: I always feel strange when weddings feel somber — and I’m so surprised by how many of them do… I think it’s just because a wedding is a truely sacred event and is obviously something to be taken seriously. Becuase of that seriousness, I think the tone during ceremonies often ends up feeling kind of somber. We warded against this feeling by making flags that said “Yay!” “Woot!” and “Whoo hoo!” for everyone to wave. They were one of my favorite things about the whole wedding I think.
All Photographs by Kelly Prizel Photography
I could go on forever about the ceremony… especially about Beau’s vows, which everyone was talking about for the entire reception, but I’ll leave it for a later post.
Next up… pretty little details!
I haven’t given much thought to what we will say yet. It seems the hardest part to me. I want it to be meaningful but I am bad at being emotional especially in front of people. Even though you had rain, your ceremony still looks beautiful. I love the flags, they make it so festive.
Inspirational.
aw… you guys are the best. It means a lot to be able to share the day with a broader community and know that y’all are out there rooting us on.
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Great post! Echoed many sentiments of my own wedding. :)
Congratulations!