Unity Ceremonies
While planning your ceremony, there are lots of different choices you have to make. Deciding if a unity ceremony is something you want to include is just one of those choices. This blog post talks about how Unity Ceremonies can play an importasnt role in your wedding ceremony. Each of the following ceremonies serve different purposes, representing your relationship and commitment in different ways. Each ceremony can be completely customized to suit your relationship. The materials needed for the ceremony will be the responsibility of the couple. We can make suggestions for where to get the supplies and give you details of what you will need. We can adapt most of these ceremonies to also be family blending ceremonies.
These are just a few of the most popular ceremonies. You can visit our Pinterest page for additional ideas.
Unity Candle - A symbolic ceremony that has the couple light a single candle representing their willingness to walk life's pathways together as one. This ceremony is not suitable for outdoor ceremonies. This is one of the oldest and most traditional used in wedding ceremonies.
Love Cord—The couple braids together three cords of different colors-one for each member of the couple and one to represent their love. This demonstrates that while they are strong individually when combined with love they are unbreakable. If desired, this cord can then be used as the cord for the hand-fasting.
The Oathing Stone Ceremony - Embrace the old European tradition to add a meaningful highlight to your wedding ceremony. The Oathing Stone is an old Scottish tradition where the couple place their hands upon a stone while saying their wedding vows.
Wine and Letter Box Time Capsule—In this ceremony the couple writes one another a love letter detailing why they fell in love and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. This is placed into a box with a bottle of wine and perhaps two wine glasses. This is then sealed to be opened on the couple’s Fifth Wedding Anniversary.
Unity Painting---the Couple paints a canvass during the ceremony. The canvas represents their relationship at the beginning, each color of paint represents one of the members of the couple. The flowing together of the paint represents the blending of their lives and the changes coming together makes for them. This painting is then displayed in the home.
Sand Blending - This ceremony can be a beautiful and meaningful alternative to the "Unity Candle" ceremony. The pouring of two different colored sands together is used to symbolize the joining of the couple or the "joining of their families."
The Hand-fasting - This Celtic tradition of Hand-fasting is an ancient commitment ceremony. It is the predecessor to the modern wedding ceremony and where the term “Tying the knot” originated. The number of cords used can vary from 4 to 7 to represent different aspects of marriage.
Water Blending - This ceremony can also be a beautiful and meaningful alternative to the "Unity Candle" ceremony. This ceremony is a wonderful alternative ceremony for waterfront ceremonies. The pouring of two different vials of water together is used to symbolize the joining of the couple or the "joining of their families."
The 7 Steps (or Blessings) Ceremony - The Hindu ceremony, a rite known as "samskara," has several components and it is quite beautiful. It includes 7 Sanskrit blessings as the couple walk 7 times around a table as the minister recites the 7 blessings.
Handwashing—This ceremony allows the couple to demonstrate their willingness to wash away any past hurts and start their marriage fresh and clean by washing each other’s hands. They dry each other’s hands in order to show their commitment to taking care of each other and demonstrate their willingness to provide small kindnesses for their partner.
Jumping the Broom Ceremony - The Jumping the Broom Ceremony is an African American and Pagan tradition which is increasing in usage . It signifies their entrance into a new life and their creation of a new family by symbolically "sweeping away" their former single lives, former problems and concerns, and jumping over the broom to enter upon a new adventure as a married couple.
Tree Planting-The tree planting ceremony is a way to show your commitment to the future. There are beautiful words to describe how your marriage is like the various parts of the tree. This unity ceremony also provides you with a phsical memory of our wedding ceremony which you can then plant and watch grow over the years.
