Mrs. Lovebug, Tucson
Age and Occupation in 06: 31, Writer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Professional Game Show Contestant
Engagement Date: February 18, 2007
Wedding Date: April 19, 2008
Venue: Historic Inn
About Me: Likes: blogging, wikis, semi-colons, cuddling, fragrant flowers, syntax, and spooning. Dislikes: typos, dangling modifiers, flypaper, citronella candles, and run-ons. If I had my druthers, I'd exchange simple vows in a candlelit library. But I lost my druthers long ago...anyone seen them?
Two Umbrellas, One Wedding
April 1st, 2008 @ 8:29 am by Mrs. Lovebug
I’ve always known that no matter who I married, we would be writing our own vows. That was mandatory - marry me, and you can forget about pre-formatted promises. But when we met with our officiant and I told her that I wanted to put my “verbal stamp” on as much of the ceremony as possible, she was incredibly enthusiastic. Indeed, she encouraged me to write as much of it as I wanted - all of it, even.
Challenge accepted!
I consider myself a fairly practiced writer - but penning a marriage ceremony is…a unique assignment. There’s only you, feelings that by their very nature defy expression, and your wish to write something moving, but not schmaltzy - timeless, but personalized.
First we had to hammer out what basic elements we want. Doing so came with its own concomitant challenges, since while Mr. LB is a spiritual bug, I’m an agnostic one. I like to think of religious beliefs as a set of umbrellas. Some are very small, limiting, and only have room for a very few people (a highly fundamental or restrictive belief system). And some are much larger, able to encompass entire nations and generations (a generalized belief in a higher power, or basic karmic principles).
Mr. Lovebug and I stand under different umbrellas. Ironically, this doesn’t alienate me from him - it makes me love him more. I admire his sweet, simple faith. I even envy it at times. But I just don’t share it, at this point in my life.
I could never marry in a church. It would feel insincere to me, like I was mouthing words in choir. And as Mr. LB’s beliefs aren’t attuned to any one church, that was ok with him. In fact, it was ok, he said, to have an entirely secular ceremony.
To him, a ceremony written without reference to God doesn’t invalidate our marriage, or make him a sinner, of any sort. He firmly believes he’ll see me in heaven someday, even if I’m not quite convinced.
And so it’s been my challenge to write something beautiful, without any religious references. This has been difficult, because though I may be an agnostic, I recognize that the concept of God is a very, very beautiful thing.
I’ve written some sections of the ceremony (including a very cool chocolate and wine ritual we designed), and I’d love to share/get feedback on them…but I wonder: is reading someone else’s wedding ceremony a bit like looking at their vacation photos?
Is anyone else having a “two umbrella” wedding, or writing their own ceremony?
23 Responses to “Two Umbrellas, One Wedding”
We were in much the same situation. We wrote secular vows, let our minister say a prayer, and asked our parents to write a blessing saying whatever they wanted.
I say share if you’re inclined…reading other people’s vows was incredibly useful while writing ours.
My fiance and I were in precisely the same predicament. I consider myself a spiritual person–I just don’t believe in organized religion. We are concocting our ceremony from scratch.
Please share……I love reading wedding vows. I find the experience similar to reading a poem.
you hit the nail directly on the head: it’s like looking at someone else’s vacation photos.
i’m having a difficult time as the traditional wedding is pretty much the only thing that people have come to know and accept. hearing that we’re doing something different almost makes the marriage seem like it’s not the real thing, which is very disappointing (being that to us, it’s more the real thing that anything else). finding a balance between traditionalism and what we want is very difficult, and the likely outcome may be a hot mess that doesn’t please anyone. =/ hopefully not though!
good luck!
Your situation sounds very similar to ours. This is the main reason why we decided to go with a handfasting as the core of our ceremony. Since it was completely different it led to fewer questions regarding why we had not including x or y. Our only reference to any deity was an Irish blessing that was read over us by my mom. It was wonderful and felt very “us”. One of the things that I love the most about our relationship is our religious tolerance and mutual respect for eachother and this was never more evident then in the process of writing our ceremony.
The only negative that happened was my MIL took my DH aside before the rehearsal and expressed her dissapointment that this was not the christian wedding she had always hoped for with her son. I’m just hoping that that doesn’t turn into this isn’t the christian *woman* she had always hoped for, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when/if we get to it.
We are writing our own ceremony, too. I don’t mind a reference to God, but my fiance is firmly against it, as well as against any readings, blessings, or things like a unity candle or sand ceremony (he just wants to stand there, say vows, then leave. boring!). My mother, however, is a devout Christian, so she’s disappointed in the lack of God in the ceremony. It’s a difficult thing to do- please everyone involved (especially when you have two bullheaded, slightly selfish people like my fiance and my mother!). Hopefully I will be able to write something that everyone will be happy to hear.
Good luck!
I’ve got an umbrella in the closet, as does the husband and his family, but a lot of my family has a big, ’spensive umbrella they carry at all times and sometimes thwack people with, so we kind of went with the umbrella-wielders just to avoid ill will. And then the best man managed to mention the Big Bang during his speech, and it all went downhill from there. But our intentions were good.
Although we ultimately went 100% out of the Book of Common Prayer, I did find a dandy book at the local library called “The Wedding Ceremony Planner” (ISBN 1402203438). It’s a really sane, reasonable guide to what’s essentially the most important part of the wedding day, and the Amazon customer reviews are off da charts (29 reviews, all 5-star). Plus it’s a pink book, so it totally matches your theme.
To me, reading someone’s vows = peeking in their underwear drawer! The intimacy that is inherent in personally written vows is not something that necessarily translates well to a wide (public) audience. Sharing it within a ceremony with those that love and know you is a meaningful process though.
Having said that…I realize that is less than helpful. We’re writing our own vows/ceremony too, sans God or other higher beings. I found some useful secular vows online. I think I searched for Humanist ceremonies. I did read someone else’s ceremony and vows that were posted, and will probably adapt some of the ideas. If you want a link, let me know.
Good luck! You’re very skilled with words, so I’m certain you’ll be able to write something which feels right for both of you.
Well sharing your vows is incredibly personal, obviously - but I’m writing ours, too (the whole ceremony, in fact!), and I’m struggling with all the same things. We are not sentimental, drippy people - but isn’t this an inherently sentimental, drippy event? I want to be clever but also sincere, and I want to express my appreciation and happiness… but I don’t want anyone to make anyone gag. So if you thought you wanted to share what you’ve written, that would be great… but I can understand how you wouldn’t want to. If you do share, though, I definitely will read…
Both my husband and I do not believe in organized religion, but we do believe in spirituality that’s individual. We really wanted a friend to perform our ceremony as opposed to a dial-up JOP or nondenominational clergy. Our friend was deptized at city hall, and the three of us worked together to write the ceremony.
We wanted it to be a reflection of us as a couple…personal, funny, and conveying the commitment we were both making. We were able to find many examples of ceremonies online and just picked the parts we liked and put it all together.
We basically had our officiant introduce himself, explain why we chose him to perform the ceremony, we let him write his own thoughts of each of us individually, and of us as a couple, he read a passage from Paul Newman & Joanne Woodwards wedding that was so perfect for us that briefly mentions gathering thigns of the spirit (our only religious reference).
Then there was a portion in the middle saved for our own personally written vows to each other, which we did not share with anyone ahead of time.
Then we did the “will you take XX to be your wife…” part, and a ring exchange, but wrote it with words we liked (I refused to say, “obey”, we wrote it more as a mutual commitment thing). And there you have it.
I think it would be fine to post your overall script, if you feel you need some feedback. Omit the parts you feel are too personal, if any.
Good luck. Make it what you want. A few people in our family were worried it wouldn’t come off as serious enough and that we were mocking the whole thing, but the way we wrote it and the way it was performed was so beautiful, personal & heartfelt, everyone walked away without a doubt int heir mind how committed and in love we were. There wasn’t a dry tear in the house.
I am writing my own vows now too, and would LOVE to read yours. Your wordplay always makes me smile.
Vows are so personal that there’s no real risk of plagarism, but I guess I most want to get a feel for how mushy other people get in front of all of their guests. Most want to be true to our feelings, but don’t want people to think “too much information!”
This is a very important post for 2 reasons: (1) more people should feel encouraged to write their own vows and (2) more marriages are being validated by multiple faiths/ideals and this is something we should embrace. [Okay, I’ll step off my soapbox now!]
Writing your own vows is so special. No matter what you write, it comes from the heart and I’ve always been touched by that. Surprisingly, I have attended very few weddings with unique vows. All of them have been the standard “til death do us part”, and while I still shed a tear, I’m left disappointed.
Miss Lovebug, I have a similar situation. Fiance is Catholic and I’m…well moral, but definitely not a subscriber to organized religion. And while our ceremony will not contain any explicit references to God, I do feel there are still ways to be spiritual in a ceremony. Since you’re a talented writer, I have no doubt you will be able to invoke an enormous amount of love and spirituality with or without the reference. Great post!
i can’t imagine how hard it might be to have different umbrellas! we’ve built our relationship by being under the same umbrella, and it’s among the top reasons i want to marry him (although there’s a lot of top reasons!).
I second Sarah’s recommendation on “The Wedding Ceremony Planner.” This is a super book and has almost anything you can think of, both religious and secular.
Also, Miss LB, it’s nice that you and Mr. LB respect each other’s umbrellas…ellas, ellas, eh, eh, eh.
…I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
We don’t belong to a Church and I don’t want to have a wedding in a church either. Plus I’ve always imagined getting married outside. So, I am going to try to find a nontraditional officiant. My cousin used a really great lady who had some completely unique remarks that made their wedding feel different, but still a “traditional” wedding ceremony. His wife has several gay and lesbian family members and the ceremony honored them in subtle ways to recognize that she wished her family could all have weddings, too.
I am writing the whole ceremony and I am looking for ways to inject our personalities. I hate the idea of a unity candle or sand ceremony. I would love to read your ceremony, because it is hard to find the details of ceremonies that aren’t generic to get inspirations.
First off, you are awesome for using the word ‘concomitant’ in that post. I LOVED what you shared before (the vows) and would really love a peek into your ceremony - especially the wine and chocolate part. I really enjoy your voice on the ‘bee and have to admit, I kinda have a girl crush on you.
I’m in a similar boat, where I respect the notion of god, I just haven’t sorted what that means to me. I’m more of a gal who picks aspects of belief systems that speak to me, and have constructed my own umbrella. It may be shoddy and partly made of newspaper, but it helps keep me dry when the rains fall.
Thanks for sharing what you have so far. I’d love to hear how you put it together!
Definitey share your words if you’d feel comfortable. Your writing is always beautiful, I’d love to read it!
We are in a similar situation where I am the more spiritual of us (he is not at all). We actually wrote our ceremony this weekend, pretty much from top to bottom (keeping in only snippets of our officiant’s template, and whatever legalese is necessary).
We are not getting married in a church, and the ceremony is wholly secular. However, I did want to include a nod to the spiritual. No matter how DISorganized I am about religion, and while I know in my heart that my relationship is blessed by God, I’d like to have something ‘official’ and public that says so.
So partly for me and partly for those in the room that are very religious (i.e. my mom), we are having two of our friends (groomsman and his wife), who are really devout Christians, say a prayer or blessing at the end of the ceremony. I think it’ll be lovely because they are a young, married couple who is passionate about everything, including their faith, so it be won’t be too stuffy, and it’ll be more meaningful to us than a random pastor saying it.
We had a ceremony much like what you mentioned - we wrote/revised it ourselves - feel free to e-mail if you want it…
We’re writing out entire ceremony and vows as well, due to the fact that we will be married by a friend (non-certified officiant) in Montana, as is allowable by state law. Eek, it’s a challenge!
TR, I would be interested to see your ceremony as well.
I would love to read some of the sections you’ve written. I’m going to have to start designing ours soon and have the same dilemma as you. I think it will be a little tricky and it would be nice to see how you’ve approached this!
@bonniebelle101: omg, I can’t imagine how I’d react to something like that coming from the MIL. It wouldn’t be a good scene, though.
@Sarah: Big Bang? Are you serious? I’m so, so curious.
@bunnybee: Oh, that’s super cool. I love the idea of that.
@Dana: Awesome. I love your approach to umbrella-ing. And thank you. 
Everyone else, thanks so much for the encouragement and feedback. I think I will post a bit of it here, if nothing else just to further revise it. As always, I appreciate all the open minds to bounce my thoughts off of.
what a beautiful way to express your frames of reference. I don’t have a vision of what our secular ceremony will be like, but if you keep sharing your vow-writing process like this I will have great food for thought when we start designing our ceremony!
