Is your wedding day the most important of your life?

 

Is your wedding day the most important of day of your life? You hear that it is a lot. People talking about ‘the big day’ and ‘the best day of your life’ and all of these pressure filled statements. But is it? Should it be?

I say No.

Surprising as it may be that as a celebrant, someone who should be wanting people to have weddings and get married, I don’t think that it should be the most important day of your life. It may seem when planning it that it is, but it shouldn’t be. Don’t for one moment think that I am saying that you shouldn’t want to have a wedding, or that you shouldn’t get married. I’m just saying that it’s not just about the ‘wedding’ and the one day.
It is without a doubt a wonderful day and you will look back on it as one of the most fantastic and beautiful days of your life. It is special and amazing with all of the people that you love are around you witnessing you make promises to the person that you love most in the world.

It is not the most important day of your life though. It will be over in the blink of an eye. All of the time, money and hard work that you put into planning your day will pay off I’m sure, but the wedding day isn’t the most important part. Your ‘marriage’ is the most important part. Your marriage isn’t defined by the day. The success of your marriage isn’t about the dress, or the food or the flowers or that amazing arbour or the 3, 5 or 26 attendants that you had. It’s about the two of you and the time that has come before ‘the big day’ and the years that follow that ‘best day of your life’

It’s about the person that you have chosen to stick with, through whatever your lives will bring. It’s the person that you promise to ride the storms with and through good times and bad and you will both give it your best go. It’s when life can’t be 50/50 all the time, that you will be willing to carry that 80/20, and the person that you appreciate when they do they 80% and all you have in you is the 20%. These are the most important days of your life the ones that you grit your teeth through, so that when you have more of these amazing days, when you see each other and your family and friends succeed that you can appreciate the wonderful times and smile knowingly at each other that you get to share those moments.
Try to remember this when planning the ‘big day’. Things will happen and things will go wrong on your wedding day, just as they do if real life and things won’t always end up as you envisioned them to be. But have your wedding so that you are grateful that you picked the right person to be by your side whatever happens and whatever comes your way that you will be in it all together.

A big thank you to Kirralee for the use of her photos on this blog, you can follow her work or find her on facebook here.

Your day, your way.

Your wedding day is one of the most beautiful days of your life. You should do it your way. You get to make promises to your favourite person in the world. It shouldn’t be done any other way than the way you want it. Especially with your ceremony.

I know I am a celebrant, and it’s the part of the day that I am involved in, but I think the ceremony is probably the most important bit. Without the ceremony and the promises, it’s just a big (and sometimes very expensive) party. There are people out there that are really concerned about the party and not so much the marriage. Not so much the people that I have married, thank goodness! I don’t know how I would go with that, but I know ‘of’ these people that is for sure.

Some of the loveliest weddings that I have conducted and been to are weddings were people have done it to suit their personalities. They were the perfect wedding for them and if someone else had that wedding it would have been out of place.  These weddings have just been the perfect fit for these people, and that has been what has made them so wonderful.

That is what I aim to help you do, I want to make your wedding represent you. I know I tend to go on a little bit about it, but it really is one of the best days where you have all the people that mean the most to you there. A lot of the time it is costing you a considerable amount of money so you should dream big and have exactly what you want. Talk it over, sit down and write a list of all the things you want on your day and go from there. I’ve spoken before about what you legally need to have in your wedding, and it isn’t really that much, the rest is up to you and your partner.
From a selfish point of view, I don’t want to be conducting weddings that are the same. I love writing a bespoke wedding, (read my blog about Bespoke Weddings here) I like the whole process of getting to know people and creating a ceremony that is uniquely about the people getting married. How boring to be going out and just delivering the same few ceremonies over and over again.  You spend hours getting flowers, a dress, the food and all of these things just as they should be and the ceremony should be the same. Your day, your way.

One of the best parts of my job is when someone that I haven’t met comes up to me after a ceremony and goes out of their way to tell me that it was a beautiful ceremony, that it suited the couple so well. I love that moment. These people don’t have to say nice things to me about the day, they don’t have to speak to me at all if they don’t want to, but it is an amazing moment for me when this happens.
Have you been to a wedding that was just perfection for the couple? Or have you been to the opposite, where it was just like someone had cut and paste where the couples names needed to be?

Thank you to Untamed Images for the use of their photos on this weeks blog. Go onto their facebook page and see all of their latest weddings, and view their website here.

Wishing well at your Wedding.

I am reading a lot of articles at the moment about people who are having a wishing well at their wedding. More and more, people are having this tradition at their wedding. People are living together before they are married, a lot more than when our parents were married. A lot of these articles are saying that having a wishing well at your wedding is tacky. I don’t think that it needs to be. I agree to an extent, some of the wording that I have seen requesting this has been harsh and can come across all wrong. I have previously blogged about gifts on your wedding day.

I have received these tacky wishing well requests myself and some of them just have it so so wrong. However I have also read some that worked really well. I think you also still have to give your guests the option to bring a gift too. Some people just really love buying the gift. I think you have to trust these people and know that they will put thought into doing so and are buying a gift because that brings them pleasure to think about what you would like and get that for you. Then there are people that can’t be bothered and they will go for the cash option. It can be uncomfortable for some people too, some people would love to give more than they can and some people just simply cannot afford to give a lot and this can be stressful for them. I remember attending one wedding where people were asking how much they should put into the wishing well and were discussing how much the couple were paying per head. The feeling was that guests should be at least contributing that amount plus some. This made me a little sad. Don’t people invite people to their wedding the majority of the time because they want them to be there? (There will always be a couple of people that you just have to invite though!)  Not to make more than they spend?

There are some lovely poem ideas out there, or I recently saw a couple that suggested that people buy them vouchers from certain stores so they could afford a few appliances that they normally couldn’t justify buying. This is a lovely way for people to feel like they are not just giving cash and at the same time the couple can choose what they want. I have also heard of travel agents that you can set up for your honeymoon and guests can put money towards travel.

Also remember that there are a lot of cultures where this is nothing new, it’s just the way that they have been doing things forever. They give it in cards, envelopes, pin it to the brides dress, they give money in all sorts of ways. This is the way that it is done traditionally. If you are going to a wedding and this is the way that the families have done it for generations it is nice to think about going with their traditions too.

How do you feel about a wishing well at a wedding?

Thank you again to the wonderful Betty and Keith at Untamed Images, for the use of their images again this  week. Check out their website here and their facebook page to see some more of their stunning work.

Wearing white to a Wedding

Wearing white to a wedding, unless you are a bride is a huge ‘no no’ in my book. I thought that most people thought the same way, but apparently not.  A little while back when meeting with a lovely couple, one of them asked me what I wear to a wedding. (You can read my blog about what I wear here.) I explained what I generally wear and how I go about choosing an outfit to wear on someone’s wedding day.

They then went on to tell me about a wedding they had attended were the celebrant wore a white dress. I was shocked and mortified. Who on earth would do that? The only reason would be if the couple were having a wedding where they asked everyone to come dressed in white, or had asked for the celebrant to do this. In my opinion, no one except the bride, should arrive at a wedding wearing white.
Do you think that it is ever ok to wear white to a wedding if you are not the bride?

Thank-you to the Love Journal for their lovely photos. Check out their website here and like them on facebook to stay updated with all of their work.

Legal wording and Marriage Equality

 

As I celebrant at every wedding I have to say the monitum. It is part of the marriage act and apart from the vows, it is the only thing that MUST be said. Full stop, end of story. The monitum along with the vows are the legal requirements of the marriage and the monitum must be said before the vows.

The monitum is:

I am duly authorised by law to solemnise marriages according to law.

Before you are joined in marriage in my presence and in the presence of these witnesses, I am to remind you of the solemn and binding nature of the relationship into which you are now about to enter.

Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

It is a requirement by law and is clearly stated in the marriage act and if it is not said the wedding isn’t valid. Regardless of what you think or I think, it is the law. (Until they change the marriage act, whenever that day may be.)  Ministers of religion do not have to say the monitum. Ministers of religion of recognised denominations and Commonwealth-registered marriage celebrants solemnising religious marriages may use any form of ceremony recognised as sufficient for the purpose by the religious body or organisation of which he or she is a minister. This means that the content of the ceremony and its form must have the formal approval and recognition of the religious body or organisation.

I have read quite a few forums recently that speak about the way that some couples feel about the monitum and they are not always happy with it. They feel the need to say something that represents what they think along with the monitum. Some couples want to say that this is the law and they soon hope that everyone should be allowed to marry whomever they wish.  Some of the comments that I have read on these forums talk about how they are worried how some of their gay guests may feel about the wording, and some of them were saying that they feel that they need to clarify that this is the law, but not their view on marriage. There was quite a lot of debate on the forum and there were clearly two sides on this issue. There was the side of couples of the belief that their friends and family that were gay have been attending weddings for their whole lives and are more than aware of what the law is in this country and feel that drawing attention to the issue in the wedding ceremony might seem a bit odd and make some people feel more uncomfortable than anything. Then there was the other side of the argument that suggested that couples need to make a stand and have their celebrant make a statement about the way that they feel and some of the forums even suggested wording so that the couples could make it known that they do not agree with the statement of the monitum.

What do you think? Are you having a wedding and are you worried about how your gay guests may feel? Have you attended a wedding where a statement was made to speak about the couples belief or statement about the desire of the couple for marriage equality?

 

Thank-you again to the wonderful Vision House Photography for the use of the photos on this weeks blog. Check out their website and like them on facebook to see more of their stunning and award winning photos.