For as long as I can remember, words have been my life. From my younger years of crafting homemade books, scripts, novels and teaching curriculum to my proclivity for novels and old smelly books from the library to my Bachelor’s degree in English, words have always been my thing.
They have a way of conveying every emotion which I’m unable to express otherwise. They have the power to be simple or complex, compelling and passionate, or soft and understated. They have the ability to transcend reality and transform something ordinary into something far more extraordinary.
Where else would I most love to implement those transformative, magical powers then one of the biggest days of my life? Only the biggest moment of my life – the ceremony. That is to say, I’ve chosen to write the entire wedding ceremony myself.
It was a fairly simple decision actually. I knew that I was looking forward to writing our vows and getting to articulate exactly how I feel about this incredibly amazing man I’m about to marry but that didn’t seem like enough. I wanted to be more involved.
Although the Boo was raised Catholic and I Protestant neither of us are current practitioners of our particular religion. So it seemed superficial to want a traditional ceremony with words and rituals that didn’t completely feel like us. And more than anything, I want the ceremony to feel like us.
So with a little help from Mrs. Star over at Weddingbee (seriously the best place for inspiration and all things wedding related) I decided to purchase The Wedding Ceremony Planner by Judith Johnson. I’m only half way through but I can tell you it has been such an amazing source of guidance and insight into how I can actually pull this off. It gives great advice on how the ceremony itself should flow, samples of different sections of the ceremony, ideas for reconfiguring them to fit your day, and handy check sheets for inspiration and editing of your big script.
I can honestly say that this is quickly growing to become one of my favorite and most anticipated parts of the day. Not only will the ceremony be the part where I get to marry the man of my dreams but it’s also now the part where we can do it in a way that fits us, embodies who we are, what we’re about and what we hope our future together will bring.
How do you feel about writing certain aspects of your day? Vows? Poems? The entire ceremony? Would you do it?
2 comments:
I love it! We are doing both. Having a traditional ceremony, however, also using our own "special" words as well. You rock!
I havent even thought about this yet but that sounds pretty cool.
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