There is no one “right way” to structure a wedding ceremony, but there are ways to create a pleasing flow that allow you to most powerfully express you love and commitment. Just as ingredients are added in a general order when cooking, your wedding will be a more meaningful and enjoyable experience for you and the congregation if you give careful thought to how it will unfold.
Here is a typical traditional wedding ceremony to help couples start thinking about what you would like. Feel free to add, remove, embellish, and rearrange elements according to your wishes and the suggestions of your officiant.
Note: Some churches and officiants consider weddings to be an extension of their worship tradition and, as such, may only perform weddings using a set ceremony. Check with your officiant for details.
For more information about weddings in general, see Weddings 101.
We Unitarian Universalists…are mosaic makers. We piece together truths from world religions, science, poetry, and personal experience to create a whole. We believe revelation is not sealed. New truth can be revealed in every moment. Each person contributes their unique piece to the mosaic of community. Out of our broken pieces, together we create beauty.
—Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway
Our Unitarian Universalist faith embraces and celebrates diversity. Our principles declare that every person has inherent worth and dignity and all of us are part of an interdependent web of life.
But for those of us who live in multiracial families, this ideal of diversity meets the messiness of putting it into practice in our homes, both our family homes and our spiritual homes.
“You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.”
—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
What do we want for our children? There is no one answer for all of us, and our individual answers likely change as we watch a child change and grow into a person with particular wants and needs.
But at a very basic level, I believe there are some things most of us would agree we want for our children—love and happiness, perhaps, are a good place to start. Sure, we know that no life escapes heartbreak or sorrow, but our hope is that the scales will tip in the direction of love and happiness.
“I have heard it said that illness is an attempt to escape the truth. I suspect it is actually an attempt to embody the whole truth, to remember all of ourselves. For illness is not something that happens to us, like a sudden sneeze or a passing storm; it is a part of who we are all the time.”
—Kat Duff, The Alchemy of Illness
When we become ill, we discover what it means to be a human “being” as opposed to a human “doing.” There can be extraordinary guilt when we realize all the things we assume about ourselves when we are healthy are no longer true. Whether it is a temporary set-back (when recovery is likely) or a chronic condition (which can only be managed, not cured) illness challenges us to see ourselves in a new light and to accept our humanness.
“Many of our fears are tissue-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.”
—Brendan Francis
Unitarian Universalists value knowledge; we believe in facing the facts and tackling problems rationally. We might even go so far as to affirm that there is a kind of salvation of the heart and mind in knowing life as it is, in all its glory and ugliness.
The human psyche does not always cooperate, however.
What do we do when irrational—perhaps nonrational—fears seize us and send us running from the knowledge?
Most people have fears that play havoc with their reason, and I am no exception.
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I have wonderful neighbors who delight in garish inflatable yard decorations. We love these neighbors, but would question their taste if they did not question it for us.
One day, as we walked past their front yard and saw them plugging in the rotating Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet inflatable Christmas globe, they turned to us, grinned, and said, “That’s right—we’re THOSE kind of neighbors.” They also told us that they might have held off on the Christmas decorations if they’d only been able to find anything for Thanksgiving.
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Recall a time when things weren’t going well for you, when you didn’t feel quite right, didn’t feel quite like yourself; a time when you couldn’t hear the still, small voice, or when its song was faint; a time when there was some emotional or mental dissonance in your life; a time when you felt disconnected, depressed, anxious, weak, subdued, out-of-whack, broken; a time when your sense of purpose and meaning waned, and you sought help.
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Gratitude is an attitude and there are aspects of it that I would not have realized if I had not come to prison. At least not in the same way. Although it may sound like an empty cliché to some and be disbelieved by others: I need to be here for the lessons I need to learn, and these lessons have nothing to do with what the state claims I did. Read more →
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks CLF/CYF members to run for positions on the Board of Directors beginning June 2012. Read more →
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As a kid, I loved the idea of the Indians and the Pilgrims having a happy feast together. In my liberal family and small congregation the generosity of the Indian people, and the fact that the starving Pilgrims wouldn’t have survived without them, was a beautiful story with the Indians squarely in the role of heroes. (Go, Squanto!) Read more →
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.