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Or: “How to Write Your Own Ceremony”
OMG, y’all.
This is hard.
When BIL Cardy agreed to officiate the wedding I was, naturally, over the moon with excitement. I had already started thinking about ideas for the ceremony, and when he said yes it gave me the green light to dive in headfirst.
Well, I think I might be drowning.
Let me back up a little. When I started working on writing the ceremony, I spent a good 10 minutes just staring at a blank Word document with no idea how to start. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever done anything like this before. Where do you even begin with writing a ceremony? What order does it go in? I felt like my head was going to implode from all of the confusion.
Then I realized that maybe I was trying to think of too much all at once.
I’m a big researcher, and a project like this is definitely something that needs research. So, I started off by looking up ideas on how the order should go. Let me tell you, there are about a million and a half different ways it could happen, but I finally settled on an order that I think I like for now. Of course, this could change 17 times before we settle on something, but it’s a start. If you’re wondering, this is the order we’re currently thinking about:
The only part of it that I’m not 100% sure about are the pledges. It’s really important to me to include the “I do” part, but I’m just not quite sure where it fits in. I’ve seen it done right at the very beginning, and right before the vows, and about every place in between. I’m going to have to play around with that one a bit before I find something that I really like.
Once I had an order that I liked (and I knew what all we were supposed to be including!) I started looking up examples. Now, I wish I had some great advice for a brilliant, organized, and easy way to do this, but I do not. What I did was read about 3 hours worth of random ceremonies and stole borrowed bits and pieces of them that I liked. I just copied and pasted random sentences, paragraphs, vows, whatever, until I had 15 pages worth of ideas.
15. Freaking. Pages.
Then, once I had all of the inspiration that I could handle, you know what I did?
I closed my laptop and walked away. With a lot of tasks like this, I tend to think that I need to finish it all at once and as soon as I can. But this is a big, important task and it’s not something I should rush through. I need to take my time, go slowly, and make sure that I don’t try to rush even a little bit.
So, I stepped away from it for 3 or 4 days. Then, when I felt like I was ready for the next step, the real work started!
Did you write your own ceremony?
Props to you honey. I wanted to try this, but I know how it will go. I would be super enthusiastic at the beginning and never be happy with my wording. I hope it all goes well for you!
We did the “I do” part after our personally written vows, and right before the kiss. My mom officiated our ceremony, and we did the I dos, then she officially pronounced us husband and wife, and then the kiss! Does that help?
We wrote our own ceremony and I used pretty much the process you described above. I also tried to think about what we wanted our ceremony to say about us as a couple and what marriage means to us.
We did the personal vows, then traditional vows, then I dos. The officiant began saying something like, In addition to reciting their own vows Mr and Mrs Library have chosen to recite the traditional wedding vows in acknowledgment of those who have chosen this path before them.
Good Luck
I went through a similar process to write ours, and you’re right, it’s HARD! But so so so worth it when you see it all come together, I promise! And we said our “I do’s” right before we were pronounced husband and wife and then kissed.
Oh! And I should add that in CA, you are required to do the “I dos” in addition to any personal vows you may have written. It’s not a choice. But that obviously varies by state 
@crayfish: That does help! For some reason I didn’t even think of doing it then (I’m blaming it on the million other things on my mind!) and when Mr. Cardy saw the order I had come up with, that’s what he suggested too! I think that’s a great place for it, and now that I think of it it’s probably the “normal” spot for it!
We wrote our own ceremony and I hated doing it. We made our ceremony short and sweet. Probably 1 or two readings and then our vows. I wanted to write our own vows, but Mr. Dolphin thought we would be too nervous to recite them. Looking back, I wish we had done it.
For some people, writing their ceremony becomes this huge long thing, a masterpiece of sorts. The husband and I, quite frankly, couldn’t care less what was said, we just wanted to be married!
They talked about this on A Practical Wedding recently, and I thought it was really interesting, but too much work for me. Here is the link in case it helps!
http://apracticalwedding.com/2010/10/secular-ceremony-round-up/
MUST have next post! haha. I specifically got on tonight to start this dreaded task of writing our ceremony.
@kartz_710: That’s a great post that I hadn’t seen yet! Thanks for sharing!
@tetorger: It’s coming soon, I promise! I don’t know how much help I’ll be at this point, though. I’m still in the middle of figuring it all out, haha.
we’re in the midst of doing it…and by we I mean me and my bottle of wine and my laptop and a mountain of stress! Glad to see I’m not the only one who is worried about this. We have 4 1/2 months to figure it out!
I got this book as a gift when we got engaged, and we’re using it to help plan our ceremony. So helpful!
We wrote our whole ceremony. I loved every word of it. Feel free to send me an email and I can email it to you!
I have a big fat Word document with Quotes, Readings, and Vows. I can email it, if you’d like! Just PM me with your email address
Our pastor is encouraging us to write our own ceremony, which is awesome, but yeah, incredibly intimidating to start. He lent us his ‘wedding books’ to help us plan. We’re using I will, instead of I do, which is really the same thing but it seems more like a promise than a statement. We’re still in the middle of writing everything, but right now we have the pledging before the vows.
FI and I are writing our own ceremony and we bought the book The Ceremony Planner that some of the Bees have recommended on the blog. We are using that and gathering readings from the internet and will pare everything down after the holidays.
I wrote some posts over on WeddingbeePRO about creating and personalizing your ceremony, including a basic outline and some information (and there’s more info on my blog and website, too), if you want to check it out.
Writing a wedding ceremony is a lot of work, and it is much harder than you think. But, in the end, it is worth it. Good luck, and shoot me an email if you need any help
I’ve currently got what I hope is our final draft of the ceremony written, and I had the same problem at first- exactly what order to put the important parts, lol. I finally decided on the “I Do’s” more toward the beginning, followed by our slideshow, then our vows (where we’ll exchange rings and repeat after the preacher). I’ve seen it done in many different ways though, so in the end go with what makes most sense for you all!
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Mrs. Cardigan, Austin Age and Occupation: 21, Student/Soon-to-be Special Education Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 20, Student/Soon-to-be Accounting Systems Analyst Engagement Date: August 16, 2009 Wedding Date: January 2011 Venue: Vintage Villas About Me: I'm a native Austinite who was raised as a die-hard Aggie. Luckily, I'm a pretty persuasive girl because I managed to convince my high school boyfriend (now fiance!), Mr. Cardigan, to ditch his hardcore Longhorn ways and join me up at A&M, where we currently reside with our adorable dogs, Cullen & Ranger. We're currently planning a bright, cheery wedding with a ridiculous amount of DIY projects that I can't wait to tackle! I love crafting in any form, reading, and margaritas (I think I love them the most!). Organization is what keeps me sane and I love helping others, which is probably why I ended up as an education major. It gets a little chaotic sometimes when you're planning a wedding among all of the papers, projects, finals, and certification exams, but we're having the time of our lives and we can't wait to get started on our journey as husband and wife - and we're so excited to share our wedding with the hive!
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