One of the luxuries of having a gay wedding is that you don’t have to do anything traditional. There are no rules! The sky is the limit! This seems scary though when you are figuring out the script of your ceremony. With boundless possibilities comes limitless options which can become very overwhelming. So where do you begin?
Tom and I began by looking at rituals to see if there were any we wanted to include. There are so many options – the unity candle, the sand ceremony, readings, honoring the parents or the deceased, wine and bread, the blessing of the rings, the rose ceremony, the tea ceremony, jumping the broom, breaking of the glass, even fireworks. Right off, I decided that I did not want religious rituals of any kind which basically cut our options in half. That helped. But we felt that wasn’t really the best place to start so we put the ones we liked to the side while we focused on the actual script and wording of the ceremony.
For the script, we began with a Google search for traditional ceremony scripts. I find it interesting that we as a couple wanted something non-traditional but immediately focused on the traditional wording right off the bat. In retrospect, I think a lot of couples might also do this for a couple of reasons: First, because it’s natural to think of the traditional components of a wedding because that’s our experience and secondly, to make sure it doesn’t end up in our own script. At least, that was how I felt.
So based on this, I compiled a little bit of this and a little bit of that to formulate a recipe for our own unique wedding. Tom hated it. He said it was too general and not personal and too serious and he was right. We put that to the side too and decided to start all over once again. But how? Cue frustration.
A couple of weeks prior we had asked one of our friends to officiate our ceremony (another example of not having to follow the traditional wedding format). We decided to have her over for dinner one night to discuss the script to see what we could come up with. She suggested that we meet with her one-on-one to talk about love and marriage and each other. We thought that was a wonderful idea and scheduled a second dinner date. A couple of days later she met up with me before Tom came home. We talked for about an hour or so and she asked me questions like “What do you love most about Tom?” and “Why do you want to get married?” She also asked me my favorite memories of us together. This brought up a wonderful discussion between the two of us and gave me a lot of ideas for the script. When Tom came home, she met with him as well (separately of course) and surprisingly found a lot of the same answers to her questions from him. After they concluded their meeting, we all met and talked for a few minutes about the exercise and right away we knew what we wanted to do. Susan went home and I went to work.
I reverted back to the original research I had collected on traditional excerpts from ceremonies that I liked. Then, I highlighted the things I liked and cut the things I didn’t. I looked for themes and beats (for you actor types out there). I created a first draft. I called Tom and Susan and set up another dinner night to review the new script. They loved it, however it still wasn’t personal enough so we went line by line and edited it, adding a little of this and a sprinkle of that. Finally, after about 4 hours (at 1:30am) – voila – we had it!
The whole process was like a writing a play – something Tom and I both have experience with developing (We were both theatre majors in our respective colleges and have developed quite a few cabaret shows together in the past 10 years). With any play we wanted people to experience a rollercoaster of emotions. Most importantly, we wanted laughter. And I believe we nailed it! It was beautiful and serious and loving and joyous and very funny. You may click here to read our script.
A few of our friends who are in the process of planning their own weddings told us they wanted us to write their scripts too (which was a huge compliment). But I don’t think that’s possible because the whole point of this exercise and our ceremony was to create something specific and unique to Tom and me. That being said, I didn’t feel completely secure that I even could create something like this for someone else. Instead, I told them about our process of developing it and instructed that they try on their own. It was really fun and very enlightening and it reminded us of why we were getting married in the first place. What could be more fun that that?
I read it! So beautiful! I’m crying at work…gee thanks Brian haha
First of all, before I read on and on, I wanted to comment on your flowing writing style. I like it a lot! Then, as soon as the three of you concluded the route to take leading to the most-special kind of ceremony script was to PERSONALIZE it, ring, ring, RING went the bells. That’s one of my most-favorite words when describing the creative wedding planning process. You and Tom are unique individuals. For sure. So there you have it. Personalizing! Funny, but I just posted a blog where I found myself qualifying that there I was writing it again, and here I am, writing it again: in my opinion, EVERYTHING that you feature during the celebration of your wedding should reflect your personal style. Bravo! And all the best to you and Tom!