How to Have a Traditional Secular Wedding

As an atheist, humanist, or agnostic you might not know what options you have for your wedding ceremony. You might be afraid you won't be able to find a minister willing to marry you without making faith a part of the ceremony. You are not limited to going to the magistrates office to avoid having a religious based ceremony. In North Carolina magistrates are only required to provide marriage services for a limited number of hours per week in their offices. They often are not available to come to your venue at the time you want to get married. North Carolina does not have justice of the peace or notaries authorized to do ceremonies, nor do they recognize civil celebrants. As All Faiths ordained ministers we are eager to be sure you have the secular ceremony you want. We never impose our beliefs on a couple.

You might want to have all the traditions associated with a wedding; the wedding party, the processional, the vows and readings, family and friends in attendance, and of course the big party to celebrate your love! None of these traditions are specific to faith based ceremonies. Most secular/humanist wedding ceremonies look very much like faith based traditional ceremonies. It is the words and the readings and vows that are what set it apart.

Your wedding ceremony can truly reflect your beliefs and life without any reference to a god or diety. A secular/humanist based wedding ceremony will focus on your love and relationship. It can be a romantic love filled ceremony or off beat and as geeky as you want it to be, it can have any theme that speaks to you.

Your choices of vows are unlimited---you can find vows (we offer a large selection of vows) which speak of your love and commitment or your can write your own. Our wedding officiants can offer guidance on how to write your own vows if you need that. Vows can also come from any literature, movie or tv show that is meaningful to you.

Readings and quotes are a unique way to truly represent your love, live and interests. You can provide the readings which are meaningful to the two of you or you can have us provide readings to pick from. The sky is the limit when it comes to what readings or quotes you use. We have used poetry, both traditional and non-traditiona, even the poem on the first Valentine card a couple exchanged! Writings by your favorite author can be included. Scripture is not required.

Unity ceremonies are an area some couples struggle with. They think that all unity ceremonies are faith based. There are many options of unity ceremonies which represent the aspects of your relationship which are most important to you. As wedding officiants we find that after talking with couples about unity ceremonies they often find something that speaks to them. Other couples don't want any unity ceremony at all in their wedding ceremony.

This article from CNN is representative of what we hear from our couples. Approximately 25% of the couples we serve request a secular or humanist ceremony.