Unique Ceremonies

[Aussie Bride]

i only just heard about sand ceremonies!!!! now there are more to choose from!

[ckntb]

I had never heard of a hand ceremony before...now I have to decide between the hand or sand ceremony?!?

[MissNatalie18]

Love these ideas - thank you all for sharing!

[MissNatalie18]

I just did some more research - I thought about a stone ceremony and googled it. I love stones and already have them incorporated into our wedding (each guest will have a stone with their name painted on it at the seat during dinner)! I found a great idea to incorporate stones into a symbolic ceremony. Option 1: Have your bridesmaid or some one in your wedding party hand out a stone to each guest as they arrive. The guests will be instructed to hold onto the stone during the ceremony. Then the officient will say... I am not religious so the religious portions can be taken out. Name and Name, before you met your lives were on different paths with different destinations. But love has brought you together and joined these separate paths into one. Each one of your friends and family here today have been given a small polished stone that represents their unique individuality and their presence at your wedding today. You also each have a stone of your own that symbolizes your previous separate lives, separate sets of friends, separate families and the different life’s journeys you once traveled. Click Here to Get the Complete Wedding Vow Kit! Stones are as old as time and good markers to us as memorials. God even told Joshua to take stones and use them as a memorial. (Joshua 4:7) I will now ask that everyone please take out the stone you have been given and pause to make a wish, a hope, a prayer or a blessing for happiness and good will for Megan and Troy for the future of their marriage. Everyone pauses to make their wish. Now, we will collect the stones and the couple will then add their individual stones to the container as well. The couple adds their stones to the container. With the combining of these stones, you have now symbolically joined your once separate lives. As the stones have been combined with love into one container, so now are your friends and family joined, through you, into one. And your once solitary life’s paths are also now one. All that was once separate is now shared, and in this sharing you both will find new strength and joy as together you forge a new life’s path and destination. Let these stones be a reminder and a memorial of the love and blessings and support you have today. And what God has joined together, let no man separate. Option 2: When your guests arrive at the ceremony site, they are each given a stone. As your guests hold them during the ceremony, they are infused with the love, good wishes and heartfelt blessings that each of them are experiencing. At the end of the ceremony, your guests are asked to move to the waters edge for the casting of the blessing stones. Ceremony of the Blessing Stones Officiant: "Ladies and Gentlemen, At this time May I ask you all to move to the waters edge for a Blessing Stone ceremony. Each of you have been given a stone to hold throughout this ceremony The stones have now been infused with your love and good wishes to bless, and protect (Bride's name) _________ & (Groom's name) _________ They ask, that in your minds And in your hearts You pray that their marriage be blessed. Upon casting the stones I ask you to take notice; As the ripples Touch and intertwine with one another, May our love also touch and intertwine To spread love and good wishes to all around us! I ask you now to please cast the stones into the Gulf Of Mexico. I am going to be doing this ceremony and the hand ceremony! so excited!!! Not sure if I will do option 1 or 2, so hard to decide.

[JayKay]

Love the stone idea!

[arobarpics]

I love the hand ceremony... thinking that's what my FI and I will do.

[harkatea]

That hand ceremony is beautiful!

[brendaniab]

That would be unit and meaningful. It would make people feel the sacrament and holiness of the ceremony. Something that no one can tear them apart.

[Tropical Love]

CKNTB,

  I heard from a couple of brides, that the sand doesn't do well on the flight back home. A lot of them did it over, once they returned home. Just something to think about.
 

Originally Posted by ckntb 

I had never heard of a hand ceremony before...now I have to decide between the hand or sand ceremony?!?

 

[DramaticAnnie]

oh you know I wasn't even thinking of special ceremonies like this, but now I kinda am.. I like the idea of the unity candle just because like it says we can light it on special occasions later...

 

The sand one is cool I am just thinking the idea of taking your sand home it wont be in pretty layers once you get it all bumped around in your suitcase :/