Weddingbee Blog

When planning our ceremony in the awesome empty, blank-slate of a room we had, there was no question about where we’d be standing. How beautiful is that organ? You can also see the balcony in the left-hand corner of this photo, it had beautiful book-paper bunting strung along it. The bunting was made by my mum, and looked great.

The room also had some beautiful stained glass windows—the ones behind me in the photo above are south-facing, and at 5PM (our ceremony time) let in gorgeous light.

I’m not going to talk too much about the text of our wedding ceremony—we heavily modified Mrs Cherry Pie’s ceremony that she posted here. It was a fun thing for us both to work on, crafting just the right words to be married with, such a helpful guideline—and figuring out where to put in all the stuff to make it legal in Alberta. What I mainly want to talk about is our ring warming, because it took a lot of Google searching for text, and in the end writing our own blurb about it to be included in our ceremony. I talked about our reasons for including this in our wedding in this post here, but it stemmed mainly from wanting to include all our guests in the ceremony, so they weren’t just a passive audience. The Group Declaration of Support Mrs Cherry Pie wrote was also very helpful for this.

At the very beginning of the ceremony, right after our officiant welcomed everyone for being there, we wrote this for him to say:

Miss Cinnamon Bun and Cinnamon Buns have would like to have you, their treasured family and friends, take an active part in this ceremony. These rings, two unbroken bands, represent the commitment that they are about to make to each other. As this ceremony proceeds, the rings will be passed around. Miss Cinnamon Bun and Cinnamon Buns have asked that each of you take a moment to warm them by holding them and placing your best wishes, blessings, advice, or thoughts into the rings. By warming the rings both literally with the heat from your hands and figuratively with your blessings, wishes and thoughts, they will carry your love and support with them for the rest of their lives.

Then bridesmaid A passed the rings, tied to a gorgeous vintage book, off to my parents on the left side of the venue. She didn’t walk up the aisle with the book, it had been placed discretely on the stage, and watched by the groomsmen until the ceremony started.

As the ceremony went on, the rings went around. We had 65 guests, and two pages of text, plus our vows to each other for them to go around the whole room. Every now and then during the ceremony, I saw our groomsmen look out to check where they were in the room. As they were passed off on the bride’s side, they would be coming back to our groomsmen.

I am so impressed that we got a photo of someone actually holding the book and the rings! It wasn’t something I’d thought to ask for, or even tell the photographers about beforehand. I really do love this photo.

The book made it back with perfect timing, and was passed up to us by a groomsman.

“These rings, now warmed by those you love the most, will forever show the world you are one and carry with them the eternal love and blessings of your family and friends.”

I am so glad we chose to do the ring warming, and we had so many of our family and friends come up to us later and say that it made them feel so included and special, and that it was the perfect thing to include in our ceremony. They felt honoured to have been asked to handle our rings like that, and we felt honoured that everyone did.

We signed the paperwork during the ceremony—we had set up a little table off to the side of the stage where we were standing:

We got one of Mr. CB’s uncles to read an Irish blessing (complete with lovely accent!) and we were married! And it felt so good to get off the little stage. I know people were still watching us, we were still the centre of attention, but it was nice to feel a little less ‘on display’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we used the platform so everyone could see, but it was a little unnerving for a backstage person like me. We walked out to Elvis vs. JXL’s ‘A Little Less Conversation’ because we thought the lyrics were amusingly appropriate—enough talking, let’s party!

Now, I have glossed over other parts of the ceremony, the rough idea of which can be found in Mrs Cherry Pie’s post. But I also want to share what happened when I was asked to repeat after our officiant for the legal-y bit. It should have gone something like this:

I, Miss Cinnamon Bun, do solemnly declare that I do not know of any lawful impediment why I may not be joined in matrimony to CB

I call upon those persons present to witness that I, Miss Cinnamon Bun, do take thee, CB to be my lawful wedded husband.

Our officiant said the first little bit (up to about ‘impediment’), and paused for me to repeat after him. I couldn’t. At that point, everything got really super-real, and I choked up. I knew if I opened my mouth I’d just make awful crying noises, so I made a face at him and tried to control my breathing. Then I stuck my hand out behind me so Bridesmaid K could hand me the hankie I’d given her to carry for me.

Everybody ‘Awww-ed’. Everybody giggled, which made me giggle, which came out more like a sob/hiccup. Our officiant tried again, with less words: “I, Miss Cinnamon Bun, do solemnly declare…”

I still couldn’t do it, so I hiccuped again. I started worrying that people were thinking I was having last-minute second thoughts, so another hiccup/sob came out.

He tried again: “I…” And that completely cracked everyone up, which helped me get back to normal, although I was very glad we’d chosen to have a mic at the ceremony, because there was no way I could have said that at full voice without even more hiccups and voice-cracking.

I would also like to thank Bridesmaid K who very graciously accepted the wet hankie back when I needed both my hands to put Cinnamon Buns’ ring on.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are by Fotograffika.

The Cinnamon Bun Recaps:

• Baking Pies
• Rehearsal
• Girls Getting Ready
• Guys Getting Ready
• First Look
• Photos in the Park
• Getting to the Venue