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google "sample ceremony" thats what I did, and found A TON of stuff :)
However, after working REALLY hard to put together the ceremony script, our officiant was not pleased because we did not include any scripture or "origins of marriage" from the bible. Fiance and his family are not religious, I've gone to church in the past, but our ceremony is NOT in a church.
So today I got to sit there while he wripped my "handmade" ceremony apart :( Very sad...Fiance could not make it to this meeting, but will be having a talk with the officiant at our next one.
we're writing our ceremony!
we've been using this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Wedding-Ceremony-Planner-Essential-Important/dp/1402203438
It's a little cliche in some places, but I've found it's really awesome for flow/SOME wording ideas.
Also, 2000dollarwedding has this resource:
http://2000dollarwedding.com/2009/07/unique-and-interesting-wedding-ceremony.html
on WB, search for Mrs Cherry Pie's wedding (she has the entire document available for download), Mrs Cream Puff, Mrs Lovebug, and I think Mrs Hummingbird too.
MrsMcD, that's terrible! Did you know the officiant was going to insist on religious stuff when you hired him/her?? Fortunately my step-father will read whatever we want him to!
Bearcub, thanks for those links!
Our officant hadn templates that you could mix and match from to make the ceremony complete. Ours is mostly unitarian with some Native Ameran mixed in.
I second Miss Bear Cub's recommendation of the Wedding Ceremony Planner for a great layout of the ceremony flow and what type of passages and rites you can include. We found the language to be a little too ... formal? But it was great to get an idea for a section and then just rewrite that idea to sound a little more like us. You can also look up officiants online, some of them have sample ceremonies on their websites and you could pull ideas from those too - good luck!
we wrote our entire ceremony and it's not religious at all (will be a big surprise to some of his family members). we are both literature geeks (he's an english teacher and i'm a writer). we adapted out ceremony from tom robbins stilllife with woodpecker (i read about someone else who had someone do a reading of this in their wedding)--it's the section that begins "who knows how to make love stay? 1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay." but instead we used a bunch of things to tell love from our relationship. Our officiant will say all of that. Our vows to each other are about how we're going to make love stay. We have a couple of readings of poetry, our ring ceremony and that's that!
i agree with the other bees above. you could read different examples of what's out there and tailor them to your own liking. after a while, they begin to sound repetitive and you'll see what stands out for what you want.
we didn't write our own ceremony but we did write our own vows and wrote something about why we are marrying the other person. for these parts, we gave them to the officiant without knowing what the other wrote until the actual ceremony. it was great! we also had options for every part of the ceremony and mixed and matched what we liked. that could be a compromise to have your officiant involved.
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I am planning on writing our ceremony, hopefully with FI. He's not into the whole writing our vows thing, but I think if I sit down with him and get him talking, we'll be able to get something really "us" out of it. I don't want the whole, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today" stuff, so I have spent a lot of time googling different ceremonies and picking a choosing different things I like to show to FI. I hope to incorporate the hand ceremony, and an Irish blessing, and a tribute to those passed. We'll see how it goes. I also recommend the library. Ours had a ton of books about vows, toasts, and readings, and that way you don't have to buy a book that may or may not work for you.
I'm with the other who recommended The Wedding Ceremony Planner ... it totally guides you through the process. You can also find readings from ANYWHERE! Any book, song, poem, movie ... any anything. Have fun with it!
We are writing our own ceremony as my brother will be our officiant. I don't have it with me, but you can find a ton of stuf online. I googled ceremony outline and started peicing things together myself.
I'm also going to recommend the Wedding Ceremony Planner - just got it this week. It's a quick read, and if you take notes, you'll find that you'll like bits and pieces here and there. All those bits and pieces add up to a complete ceremony that should speak to who you are as a couple. We're closer to completing our ceremony - which is good, since our friend-turned-officiant is getting nervous, poor patient guy that he is!
I googled wedding ceremoonies and stuff and came up with lots of samples. Mrs. Cherry Pie helped write her ceremony and posted it on here, we used some of her ideas. We're doing the same thing, we're not religous, so we hired a JP to marry us and then I gave her the ceremony to read.
Thanks for the reccomendations for "The Wedding Ceremony Planner". I picked it up at the public library the other day (hooray for public libraries!) and it is SUPER heplful. I recommend it to anyone else writing their own ceremony. There is more religious stuff than I would like, but it is still very useful.
There's also Mrs. Cherry Pie's post about writing your own ceremony. I'm using it as a guide for our ceremony. http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/09/24/write-your-own-wedding-ceremony/
We're going to be writing our entire ceremony ourselves. =) We've found some good outlines on About.com (http://weddings.about.com/od/yourweddingceremony/a/SampleCeremony.htm), as well as here on the PRO site (http://www.weddingbeepro.com/2009/05/19/wedding-ceremony-101/), and we've been stockpiling ideas for little traditions and ways to make them our own.
baffled- the officiant said that he would work with us and realized that we were not looking for a huge religion-based ceremony. Once we started the actual meeting with him however, he completely changed his tune! Fiance is going to talk to him this week though.
My fiance and I wrote our own ceremony. We first talked about exactly what we wanted. Then, he wrote most of it. To fill in some gaps (sand ceremony, ring ceremonyetc.) and make sure we had the correct order I used samples on the internet and melded my favorite parts together. If you want to borrow a copy, just let me know.
We wrote our own ceremony (I came up with ideas from the Internet, FH yayed or nayed them). Googling "Humanist Wedding Ceremony" helped me get a general outline, and I used inspiration from Mrs. Lovebug, Mrs. CherryPie, and Mrs. Gingerbread's ceremony texts, changing the wording to make it our own.
You can read it here:
http://www.weddingbycolor.com/bananapants/milestones/41454
There is also an officiant on Pro who walks people through personalizing the ceremony. I'm sorry that I'm blanking on her name right now!
I have been thinking about this also, but #1 didn't know where to start and #2 haven't spoken witht eh officiant yet to know if they will allow this in the first place.
Thanks for the thread though, now I know where to go when I'm ready!
@doctorgirl: That's me! You can find all of my posts about personalizing and creating your ceremony here: http://www.weddingbeepro.com/author/jessieblum/ and more info on my website and blog: http://www.eclectic-unions.com
Thanks for the links. We are also writing our ceremony and used google to find a bunch of samples. Our city states that we use our own officiant, we cannot use any religious tones.
Have you looked at Mrs. Cherrypie's ceremony? It's lovely. We've "borrowed" quite a bit from hers.
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Is anyone else writing their own ceremony themselves? We are not religious and not traditional and my step-father is going to be our officiant. We've also already been together for 10 years. Consequently, we are writing the entire ceremony ourselves to suit our relationship and our bond.
But writing a ceremony is a lot of work! Has anyone else done this for themselves? Which resources did you use to help you to write a ceremony that felt true to you?