Yes, this is a blatant rip-off of Miss Otter’s “The Stuff We’re Skipping” series. I was going to come up with a clever name, but…I’m not that clever. She wrote about choosing to forgo the programs, removing the garter, and the wedding website. I’m going to continue her awesome series and talk about two (or three) things that Mr. Lemur and I are skipping in our wedding.
I’m not sure how prevalent having a unity candle is in other cultures, but in the Protestant Christian culture it seems like every wedding has a unity candle. (I read somewhere that this is not true of Catholicism, but I don’t know much about that! If anyone wants to comment and clarify, I’d love to hear about it.)
I assumed this was a hallowed tradition, you know, one of those Things-You-Have-To-Do. I was never a huge fan of the unity candle—the practice seems strange to me and it causes awkward moments where the candle doesn’t light right away or it blows out.
Image via Lover.ly / Photo by Natalie Franke Photography
I think the unity candle does make for some really sweet moments. It’s a symbol of support from the parents as their children get married and form their own families. Sometimes the lighting is accompanied by a song or reading by a friend or family member—this is special!
Image via Lover.ly / Photo by Evan Miller
I’ve also seen people do ceremonies with unity sand. Rather than light a candle, the two parties pour sand into a larger container at the same time. This solves the blowing the candle out problem, and might be cute for a beach wedding!
Image via Lover.ly
All of these ideas are sweet, but they’re not for me. At first I thought I had to come up with something new and exciting if I wasn’t going to do a unity candle—like somehow I was depriving my guests if they couldn’t watch us light a candle together. Really though, the unity candle is just a tradition. The importance is the symbolism—which we’re already showing by choosing to leave our families to form our own.
So, no unity candle for us! What about you? Did you do something special?
I’ll clarify for the Catholics 
It’s not a part of our wedding ceremony. Some churches allow it, and some don’t- our didn’t! Our priest explained it this way- the Catholic church uses candles in the Mass to represent the light of Christ, so having candles that also represent the bride and groom, or their families, is a bit inappropriate. Personally, I didn’t mind- it does always feel like an awkward part of the ceremony
I totally did NOT want to do a unity candle because it really didn’t have any meaning to me, but when we sat down with our pastor to talk about the ceremony, Mr. A surprised me by voicing that he really wanted to do the unity candle…so we’re doing one! If it holds meaning for him, who am I to say no?
I hate unity candles and sand! I’m Catholic and it’s definitely not something that’s a part of the liturgical rite, although some people feel the need to have it. Perhaps I’m just being a liturgical snob, but I feel like the weight of tradition and the beauty of the liturgy leaves no room for something that seems like a kumbaya retreat activity or a middle-school arts and craft project. According to “A Practical Wedding”, it was made up in the ’70s, out of that hippie culture. It always feels like something inserted to make the ceremony meaningful because it doesn’t stand on its own. To each their own though.
We didn’t do a unity candle either! Or any sort of unifying ceremony, for that matter. It was pretty short and sweet.
@Mrs. Gloves: Oh that makes sense! I grew up in the Protestant church so I’m not familiar at all with Mass or Catholic traditions. I’ve actually never been to a Catholic ceremony, so I wasn’t sure what if anything you did with candles in the service.
@Miss Armadillo: That’s too funny! Mr. Lemur is not super adamant on much so if all of a sudden he insisted on doing something I would definitely go with it, even if it was something I wasn’t interested in.
@Vanessa: I read this in the book too I almost included it in the post but I figured I didn’t need to to make my point! I think the ceremony is beautiful and uniting no matter what. Kind of like “you don’t need a unity candle to have unity.”
@Mrs. Genie: I keep worrying that our ceremony will be TOO short! I think the whole ceremony is unifying so I don’t need to belabor it though
We don’t plan to do a “unity candle” or anything of the sort beyond the legal ceremony and our personal vows, we want no reference made to religion (of any kind) in any way shape or form throughout our entire wedding , our wedding will be about us promising to one another to spend the rest of our lives together, nothing more
No unity candles or sand here either. We’re still considering a wine box or letter-type something or other.
No candle for us, though sand seems really prevalent around here, we’re choosing to not do that, either. Just not our thing. We’re doing a handfasting instead.
At this point, we probably won’t have a unity-anything.. I mean except our marriage of course! I’m with you – I think joining together to create a new family is unity enough, but more power to the candle-lighters and sand-spillers out there
The unity candle wasn’t for us either. Instead we did a Persian unity ceremony where we dipped our pinkies in honey and fed it to each other – to symbolize eternal sweetness!
My fiancee was definitely against the candle option and we toyed with the idea of sand, but it didn’t feel right for us.
We did want to do a unity symbol, and we discoverd the “Unity in Glass” option and we were sold! I’m actually really excited about it now!!
http://www.unityinglass.com/
We didn’t do either one and neither we nor our guests missed it! We filled our ceremony with things that had meaning to us or that we just liked
As @mrsgloves explained, the unity candle is not part of the Catholic wedding. I’ve seen it in other weddings and thought is was a sweet symbol but that was it. For me, the rings, the ceremony, the 13 coins or arras (our church requested we provide them) were enough symbol of the new family we were creating
No candle, no sand. We’ve been debating the idea of the wine bottle and letters. We like the idea of reading the letters in 5 or 10 years But now that I’ve seen the Unity in Glass option, I’m reconsidering! I can’t get wait to get home so I can show him!
My husband and I did the unity sand! We thought it better than a unity candle, because a candle eventually get burned all the way down if you use it, and whats the point of having a candle if you don’t burn it?!? For us, the sand ceremony allowed us to include our family just a little more (our wedding party was 2/3rds family!), and has become a cherished piece of decoration for our new home. I love the symbolism of it, especially in a culture rampant with divorce. You can’t separate us any more than you can separate those grains of sand!!
But thats just me. I applaud you for doing what you want with your ceremony, and can’t wait to hear more about it!!
We didn’t do any sort of unity ritual. We figured that the exchanging of vows and rings was symbolic enough of our unity.
Our Priest would have allowed the unity candle, but it’s not part of the liturgy, and we decided to forgo it. I don’t think I have been to a wedding yet where there wasn’t some sort of unity candle mishap– they won’t light, or the A/C comes on and blows it out, or the groom blows wax onto the bride when he blows out the candle…at one wedding, there was no lighter or matches in the church to light them with, so the best man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Bic– so we had this lovely instrumental music, and the mothers of the bride and groom “Flicking their Bic” to light the candles. It was hilarious but the bride was horrified later when she saw the video.
I’m planning on doing a tying the knot ceremony and skipping the sand and candle part.
Mrs. Lemur, Greenville, South Carolina Age and Occupation: 22, Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Security Officer Engagement Date: October 9, 2012 Wedding Date: May 2013 Venue: Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center About Me: I may fancy myself a doctor after too many episodes of House—but in reality I'm finally almost done with my degree in business administration (less than three months left!). My fiance and I met at school in undergrad hundreds of miles away from either of our hometowns and have been happily running and hiking together ever since. We're undertaking a long distance relationship as I finish school and we plan our casual wedding for a day after graduation—needless to say, it will be the busiest and most exciting weekend of our lives so far!
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