Weddings from the Heart. Daphne Rose Kingma
you to fall in love in the first place. For long after the champagne bottles have been taken away and you've polished off the last piece of frozen anniversary cake, it is the essence of your ceremony—the words that were spoken, the atmosphere you created through them, and the love and joy you generated through all its special moments—that will take root in your hearts and form the foundation of a love so strong that it can span your life.
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.
—Simone Signoret
If you want your wedding to be unforgettable, you will want to fashion it in such a way that it truly reflects the uniqueness of your relationship. Because a wedding, whatever its form, symbolizes and celebrates an emotional and spiritual bond, you will want yours to reflect the love that has affected you so deeply that you have decided to change the whole color and texture of your life by getting married. For just as you love the person you're about to marry because he or she is in some way different from all others in your eyes, so you will want to make your wedding unforgettable by creating a ceremony that is as special as the two of you, one tailored to express not only the quality of your love, but also your wonderful quirks, your touchingly special attributes as individuals, and the feelings, wishes, and intentions that you share as a couple.
Thus, although the classic image of a traditional wedding—the bride in white and the groom in a tuxedo saying vows of “‘til death do us part”—may be indelibly imprinted on your mind, it may neither fit your particular circumstances nor embrace the range of feelings you want to evoke as the memento of your love. You may want a wedding that resonates with tradition yet includes opportunities for departures from custom, a wedding that truly expresses your own uniqueness.
BUILDING ON TRADITION
Traditional weddings are generally based on the values of society and the church. In addition to honoring the bond between the bride and groom, they invite the new couple to surrender their union to the care and approbation of the larger community. In such ceremonies, marriage can be construed to be somehow at the service of society or the church. The bride and groom are saying, in effect, “through this ceremony we submit our relationship to a larger, more commonly held notion of what marriage is; we will live by society's or the church's definition of what's right.”
Because you have purchased this book, you obviously want something other than the strictly traditional ceremony available through your church or synagogue. By providing you with a selection of elements both traditional and contemporary, this book is a gift to that purpose. It invites you to consciously create the wedding ceremony that will have the profoundest meaning for you. For in deciding to create a wedding from the heart, you're saying that you are interested in a more personalized definition of marriage, one that includes a very specific reflection of your love and of what your relationship means to you. You know that love is a feeling—it's what's brought you here; but you also know that marriage is an undertaking that will ask you to mature your love in a way that serves, delights, and challenges you; and it's this that you are wanting to express in your departure from tradition.
Weddings from the Heart encourages you to expand the definition of marriage by reshaping traditional elements in such a way that you can acknowledge time-honored values while creating a highly personalized wedding ceremony. By studying the various components of the ceremony, choosing those that suit you exactly and working together so that what you include reflects what both of you feel, you can create a truly beautiful wedding. Your wedding will be a personalized expression of your values and experiences, as well as of the hopes, dreams, and intentions that are so precious to both of you. Above all, it can become the blueprint for the life you intend to live when you are married.
USING THIS BOOK
The book opens with an essay, Reflections on Marriage, which is just that—a discussion of the meaning and attributes of marriage, its emotional and spiritual dimensions. Although this is meant to be a reflective meditation on the undertaking of marriage, a way for you to prepare yourself for creating your ceremony, a great many people have found it such an inspirational statement about the meaning of marriage that they have chosen to use it, virtually unmodified, as the “address” in their wedding ceremony. I have included the essay so that whether you're using it as inspiration for planning your wedding or as part of the wedding itself, its message it will open your heart to the deeper meanings of your marriage ceremony. The book then discusses the meaning of the various parts of the wedding ceremony so you can begin to determine which ones you wish to include.
It next offers five complete contemporary ceremonies, which reflect most accurately, I believe, what a wedding and marriage itself mean in the emotional and spiritual environment we are living in at the close of this twentieth century. They can be used by any couple who choose to honor their union by getting married, no matter what their sexual or lifestyle preference may be. Although none of the ceremonies has been written specifically for the gay or lesbian couple, all have been used, with slight variations, in gay and lesbian weddings. It is relationship itself that we are celebrating here, not the specific configuration of it. The focus is on the power of love to bind us together; to transcend the differences that all too often divide us, and I have chosen, therefore, not to “ghettoize” gay and lesbian relationships by creating a categorically different ceremony for them.
Although each ceremony stands complete in itself, as you study them all you may find that you'd like to use a single one in its entirety or combine selections from several. To assist you in the process, I also have included a civil ceremony, as well as an array of vows, benedictions, and readings from a wide variety of traditions. Those that bear no specific attribution have been written by me. These, too, you can use as is, or modify to accommodate your taste and circumstances. For example, you may want to use the traditional Methodist convocation, then move to selections from this book for the readings, consecration, address, vows, and exchanging of the rings, then perhaps conclude with the traditional benediction of your church. Or, you may want to begin with one of the convocations offered here, have your officiant give his or her own address, use the traditional broken glass of the Jewish faith, and conclude with the Catholic benediction. (In this regard you will note that I have chosen not to include either an entire Roman Catholic or Jewish ceremony, since these are readily available from your parish or synagogue, and they are always performed by a priest or rabbi, with very little room for variation.)
These selections are followed by Ceremonial Flourishes, personal touches that others have added to their weddings and that you may wish to include or adapt to add a special touch to your own.
And, finally, the book contains worksheets to help you formulate your ceremony. This is where you can work out the exact selections for the various parts of your ceremony by following the general format laid out in the worksheets, and inserting such portions as you select in the appropriate place.
Don't be afraid to be adventurous. One kind of mood will be created by relying on tradition, another by using something brandnew; the combination will be unique, inspiring. Certain feelings will be invoked by delving into family and religious traditions, but you are also making something new here—your own wedding. In so doing, you are creating a synthesis of all the traditions you hold dear, as well as an embodiment of the hopes and aspirations which, through your marriage, you hope to bring to fulfillment.
By hand-tailoring your wedding, you can create an occasion that will give you the greatest sense of joy in recalling. In choosing all the elements with care, and in saying words that come from your heart, you will touch the hearts of all those who share this precious day with you and make yours a truly unforgettable wedding.
REFLECTIONS on MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE IS THE JOINING OF TWO LIVES, the mystical, physical, and emotional union of two human beings who have separate families and histories, separate tragedies and destinies. It is the merging and intermeshing not only of two bodies and