Still, the other day I happened across their wedding ceremony, and found myself deeply touched by the thoughtful, gentle view of marriage it expressed. In particular, I loved this passage:

May you always need one another, not so much to fill the emptiness as to help each other know your fullness. May you want one another, but not out of lack. May you embrace one another, but not encircle one another. May you succeed in all important ways with each other, and not fail in the little graces. Look for things to praise, often say ‘I love you’ and take no notice of small faults. May you have happiness, and may you find it in making one another happy. May you have love, and may you find it in loving one another.

I could wish nothing better for each and every one of you in your marriages.

Wedding lighting design for ceremonies

Lighting is THE single most important visual element in your wedding. More so than flowers, decor, or even architecture and space. Yet, with all of its critical nature, so many brides, and even wedding planners, don’t consider lighting or budget for it at all. If so, it is often looked at as an addendum to the wedding decor budget.

With lighting setting the mood, it should be considered first and foremost once a space is chosen. Here’s why: One can transform any space with light, but one can only augment with flowers or decor.

On the practical side, there are three things that need to be managed when executing a lighting design for weddings:

• The room needs to look beautiful
• The guests have to feel good
• Lastly, the guests, especially the bride, have to FEEL good

Lighting design for receptions, too

So in support of that, here are five things to look for when lighting a wedding:

1. Symmetry - Light everything evenly so that the room looks symmetrical.

2. Intensity - Dim the lights a little less than you think you should. Your eye adjusts to the lower light and it creates so much more atmosphere than you’d ever imagine. Which brings me to my next point:

3. Levels - Dim absolutely everything. Having the ability to dim the lights when the grandparents go home and set the mood for the kids is a pretty important thing to be able to do.

4. Color - Soft beautiful flattering colors (pinks, ambers, honeys and apricots) should be used wherever people are. While we love blue and green to look at, and we often want to go bolder with color, those colors make our skin tones sallow and pasty.

5. Angles - Be super sensitive to light in peoples’ eyes by angling things as vertically as possible. If your grandmother has a light shining in her eyes all night, chances are she’ll go home before the cake cutting.

There is also a 6th consideration, namely your lighting designer. Since lighting is often mysterious and unknown, and the bride and her family are often unable to see the full picture prior to their walking in, (decor, catering, etc. will not yet have been set up) it is very important that your lighting designer really get you and who you are. That’s personality driven and I think it should be considered right alongside talents and portfolios as a critical criteria.

~Bentley Meeker

Are you a wedding vendor who has some insight to share with brides-to-be and grooms-to-be? Send me an email to talk about the possibility of guest posting right here!

No tears here!

A while back I asked all of your lovely ladies and gents which of you cried at your weddings or anticipated crying at your weddings, and the results were pretty interesting. 61% of the unmarried set thought they’d cry, while 63% of people who were actually married DID NOT actually cry. So it seems that a lot of us think we’re going to cry while we say our vows, but not all that many of us actually do.

Me? I laughed. At my own inability to read the bit of paper that held my vows. Oops! And I’ve seen plenty of brides and grooms do the same. I like to hear a little laughter during the wedding vows – it certainly makes things more interesting for guests. And in the spirit of my love of laughter during wedding ceremonies, I’m putting up a new poll modeled after the crying at weddings survey.

For those not yet married:

For those already married:

Don’t see yourself laughing during wedding vows because it’s so solemn an occasion? Maybe you won’t laugh, but don’t discount the possibility! As solemn as you may think you’ll be feeling, a case of the giggles can come on without warning. So former brides and grooms, if you were a laugher, I’d love to know what made you laugh!

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A Jewish wedding tradition with a growing following

Am I the only one who likes seeing wedding traditions from one faith or heritage embraced by people from other backgrounds? I know that there are some people who don’t like the co-opting of wedding traditions by “outsiders” but I my take is that wedding traditions wouldn’t have become traditions if brides and grooms didn’t find value in them. It’s not for me to say that so-and-so can’t do X, Y, and Z because those practices belong to another culture. Take the ketubah, a traditional and beautiful element of the Jewish wedding and marriage. According to a recent New York Times piece, more non-religious and Christian couples are embracing the ketubah in their own weddings.

“We wanted a permanent reminder of the covenant we made with God,” Mrs. Austin said. “We see this document superseding the marriage license of a state or a court.”

Such sentiments have been reshaping the market for ketubot (the plural in Hebrew) in the past decade. Michael Shapiro, an observant Jew from Toronto who sells artistic ketubot through the Web site ketubah.com, said he had seen the non-Jewish share of his customers rise from zero to about 10 percent. He is forming a spinoff site, artvows.com, that concentrates on non-Jewish consumers.

The decade of non-Jews discovering the ketubah coincides with three relevant social trends: the rise of Christian Zionism, the growth of interfaith marriage, and the mainstreaming of the New Age movement with its search for spirituality in multiple faith traditions. As a result, an increasing number of gentiles have taken up Judaic practices: holding a Passover Seder, eating kosher food and studying kabbalah, the Jewish mystical movement.

What began as way to protect the bride’s interests in the event of a divorce and morphed into a beautiful and artful representation of specific contractural provisions for marriage had a resurgence of popularity in the 1960s Jewish counterculture. Suddenly the ketubah was back and once again something to display rather than something to be hidden away. And, like I said, the ketubah is now finding its way into non-Jewish weddings and onto non-Jewish walls. I’m cool with that – in fact, I think it’s very cool, especially for those Christians who want to give a nod to their religion’s Jewish roots.

How does it strike you, this flow of wedding traditions from one faith or background to another? Do you think it’s cool, or kind of weird and inauthentic?

For the wedding ceremony, especially if one is saying one’s vows out of doors, having something that frames the main event can be helpful in setting the mood. The easiest option? The basic trellis archway, which can be purchased or rented for about $35. But sometimes those wedding arches can be pretty blah, and it may just be that your wedding theme doesn’t exactly lend itself to saying “I do” under something that would look more appropriate in a backyard garden. For those couples who want an arch or an arbor at the wedding ceremony, I’ve collected some inspirational images that will hopefully inspire the creation of a truly beautiful frame.

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One of the easiest ways to personalize your wedding ceremony – other than writing your own custom wedding vows – is including rituals in the event. For some, that might mean finding and then lighting the perfect unity candles. For others, it can mean planting a tree together. The wedding ceremony rituals you incorporate into your big day should be up to you, not me, but that’s not going to stop me from telling you about my new favorite: the wedding ring warming ceremony.

In the wedding ring warming ceremony, the rings go from being gifts the halves of a couple give each other to being a sort of gift that everyone present gives to the marrying pair. At some point in the event, usually before the ceremony officially begins, the officiant announces that wedding rings will be passed from guest to guest so that each can share love, support, wisdom, and a prayer for the couple through a quiet blessing before the rings are exchanged.

Once the rings have been held by each guest at the ceremony, the officiant takes them back and says something like: “Now warmed and blessed by those who love you the most, these rings will both show the world that you are one and carry the eternal good wishes and love of all who were present here today.”

Alternately, some couples will tie their rings on a ribbon and hang them on a sign at the ceremony entrance – guarded by a pair of well-chosen friends or relatives. The sign and the guardians explain to wedding guests making their entrances that they should pause and bless the rings before taking their seats. This less formal ring warming works well at larger weddings where guest lists of 100 or more people make passing the rings around during the wedding ceremony itself impossible.

And for couples who simply aren’t comfortable having a bunch of people touch their wedding rings, it’s fine to ditch the ‘warming’ but leave the ‘good vibes’ – the officiant can hold up the rings and ask everyone present to join him or her in blessing the wedding bands.

Either way, hands-on or hands-off, I like wedding rituals that give brides and grooms a way of including relatives and friends in the ceremony. After all, you can’t make everyone a bridesmaid or a groomsmen, and how many readers can one wedding have, anyway? Are you taking steps to include loved ones in your wedding?

Many brides and grooms, when considering ways to add some punch to a wedding ceremony, come across what is usually called the Apache wedding prayer or Native American wedding prayer. There are quite a few different versions, but goes a little something like this:

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before you.
May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead
and through all the years.
May happiness be your companion,
and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

The author of the Apache wedding prayer is usually unstated or simply listed as ‘source unknown,’ but apparently it’s not that difficult to find out who wrote it. According to Wikipedia, the Apache wedding prayer:

…was written for the 1950 Western novel Blood Brother by Elliott Arnold. The blessing entered popular consciousness when it made its way into the film adaptation of the novel Broken Arrow, scripted by Albert Maltz, and has no known connection to the traditions of the Apache or any other Native American group. The Economist, citing “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding” by Rebecca Mead, has characterized it as “‘traditionalesque’, commerce disguised as tradition”. There have since been several different additions and alterations to the poem.

The Apache wedding prayer as it is usually recited today is somewhat different from the prayer in Blood Brother and Broken Arrow, and it’s not clear exactly when the prayer made its way into the public nuptial consciousness (and thereafter onto posters and plaques and greeting cards). What is known is that it definitely wasn’t adapted by Henry Wadworth Longfellow, as some web sites claim, since he died something like 65 years before Blood Brother was published.

So if you’ve been eyeing the Apache wedding prayer for inclusion in your wedding ceremony, you may be wondering if you should nix the idea. I say not if you love it! After all, plenty of couples include quotes and rituals from movies and books in their wedding ceremonies, and just because something doesn’t pre-date history doesn’t make it any less valuable.

Built-in ambiance
I wouldn’t advise anyone not eloping to say their vows at sunrise exactly, but morning light can make for some amazing photographs. Outdoor morning weddings are awesome, particularly if you’re getting married somewhere that gets hot as heck midway through the day. Sparkling morning dew! A refreshing breeze! Birds chirping their cheerful little heads off! What more could you want at an outdoor wedding? And for the indoors set, that great morning light still makes for fantastic photos.

Morning weddings can be cheaper
As long as you’re working with wedding vendors who are not opposed to handling more than one wedding in a day, you can get some great deals from caterers and the like who can set up your affair in the a.m. and spend the rest of the day prepping for a p.m. fete. And the fact is that morning weddings are often simpler animals – possibly sans alcohol, sans wedding dj, and less elaborate dishes at the reception. And if you’re open to marrying on Sunday? Zow! There are a lot of great ways to save on a morning wedding, keeping in mind that if you want something huge or fancy, you’re still going to pay for huge and fancy.

Dance (and drink) or not, as you like it
Who says there can’t be dancing or drinking at a morning wedding? Not this chick! But if you’re not entirely keen on either, it’s a lot easier to justify your choices to persnickety guests when your nuptials will take place in the first half of the day. On the other hand, you can have drinking and no dancing (think morningish cocktails like mimosas) or dancing and a dry wedding (yes to the dj, no to the booze).

Breakfast and brunch foods are usually favorites
Maybe you’ll go for the basics at your morning wedding – pancakes or an omelet station or quiche come to mind – or maybe you’ll get some super chef to design you a menu with fun, upscale versions of classic breakfast foods. I’ll suggest (and you can prove me wrong in the comments if you like) that most people when faced with a breakfast or brunch buffet comprised of lots of choices will be able to find something they like. After all, you’ve got your sweet foods and your savory dishes, filling fare and lighter options!

You have a whole day ahead of you (and you’re not exhausted)
By the end of our wedding day, The Beard and I were absolutely exhausted. Sure, our wedding was in the afternoon, but we’d both stayed up late the evening before, then there was a post-wedding casual dinner near our hotel, and there were some other social obligations we had to fulfill. If we’d had a morning wedding, we could have either had plenty of time to fulfill those obligations or we could have told people to sod off, since we’d gotten up so early in the a.m.

Which actually brings me to the downside of morning weddings, or one of them.

We can’t ignore them: The cons
It doesn’t matter whether you’re saying your vows at 9 a.m. or some time later… if you’re having attendants and getting your hair and makeup done, you will be getting up with or before Mr. Sun. And no matter how early you wake up, you’re probably still going to feel rushed. Oh, and you can forget having a late rehearsal dinner the night before, as all those little details that couples having evening weddings get to take care of in the morning will be on your plate the previous day. Your guests will probably have to stay at accommodations closer to the venue, and they may look like the walking dead in your wedding photos. And you may want to consider, as per The Beard’s recommendations, pre-feeding your guests at the ceremony locale with something like coffee and doughnuts while they wait for you to finish putting your face on.

Now spill: Have any of you out there had a morning wedding? Or are you thinking about having one?

(Image via Elizabeth Anne Designs)

(via the lovely Micah Dahlberg Photography)

When considered what we one could replace the unity *whatever* with, I came across the wedding tree planting ceremony. Now this, I like. I am the kind of gal who isn’t a huge fan of cut flowers because they wilt and wither and die, and it bums me out. When a situation warrants the purchase of flora – a birth, a death, or so on – I will almost always buy a low low lowwwww maintenance plant instead of a bouquet.

(via the talented Worthington Photography)

There’s more than one way to perform a wedding tree planting ceremony. The couple can start with a sapling with a root ball and actually plant it in a container or in the ground. Brides and grooms can also plant the tree symbolically, starting with an already-planted sapling and adding soil to its container. Or a couple might simply simultaneously water a little tree that’s been previously potted. You can even include other wedding VIPs in the ceremony!

(via the fantastic people at 2000 Dollar Wedding, which is still awesome)

What does the officiant or the couple say during the wedding tree planting ceremony? My standard answer would be “whatever they want to say.” But for those brides and grooms for whom words do not come naturally, here are two ideas:

• A simple ceremony
• A ceremony script including the tree planting ritual from 2000 Dollar Wedding

(via the amazing Cindy Patrick Photography)

The only downside? I’m thinking superstitious brides and grooms better be pretty religious about taking care of that sapling until it turns into a tree that can take care of itself, thankyouverymuch. Anyone remember the “love fern” from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? The Beard and I bought a fern once upon a time and jokingly called it our love fern after seeing that movie, and I’m not kidding you when I say it was kind of sad when it died. Because I planted it outside… in the fall… where it got literally no sun. You just don’t want to watch your wedding sapling die.