The Most Important Thing Friday, January 8, 2010

My mother and I were invited to a wedding once; it was my mom's co-worker and my mother had heard endless details about this wedding for over a year now. We drove an hour, parked our cars, climbed up a San Francisco hill by ourselves at night and rode an ancient elevator in a questionable building.

We were ushered into a room with no chairs and not enough food, and full of hungry people, and we stayed there -- for two hours. We had no idea what was going on, until we heard someone say it:

"Oh, what a beautiful wedding." What?!


Turns out, this particular bride invited some guests only to the reception, and others to both events. I remember how cheated we felt; especially my mom, who knew this woman. We drove all this way only to miss the point?


Of course this anecdote is related more to the personality of this particular bride than anything else, but I think it underscores the importance of allowing your guests to see you get married, and to feel a part of that experience.
I read something a while back about the wedding ceremony being a focal point of the day itself. (What else would it be? That's the whole point!) The article went on to say that if your wedding ceremony is beautiful and meaningful and heartfelt, and if it draws your guests in, that everything else about your wedding day will flow smoothly.

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to flesh out the ceremony. We met with our officiant, a very nice spiritual lady who has lots of ideas. Almost without thinking, I figured out the elements of our ceremony. It seems like we will have:

- a dedication & brief remembrance of those relatives not with us
- a reading by one of my best friends
- a song performed by my cousin (a violinist)
- vows that we do not write ourselves (but choose in advance)
- an invitation for our guests to bless us in our new marriage
- jumping the broom

To help us, we are using one of my favorite ceremony planning books: The Wedding Ceremony Planner. It's an excellent book, especially if one is not particularly religious.

It is so important to me that our ceremony reflect us in a way nothing else that day does. Falling for my FH, and being with him every day, is one of the simplest things in the world to me. Marrying him is such a natural step for us to take, and we are so happy to do so. I hope our guests can understand what this means for us and share our happiness, and I especially look forward to feeling the encouragement and love of all those who have taken this step before us.

Here is one of my favorite ceremony sermons, at the wedding of Jennifer and Ming. I found this through the Stillmotion blog, and I love the words and the sentiment:



*Updated: I inadvertently posted the wrong video above. It's fixed now.