3 Tips for starting to devise your Wedding Ceremony & get rid of ‘snow blindness’

Creating your Wedding Ceremony from scratch?! Get past the fear of the blank page with these tips

Put pen to paper — Writing your ceremony starts with pen and paper!

HELP! “we don’t know where to start!”

When you have all the choice in the world for what to have for your ceremony it is really daunting. I forget, because I do this all the time, that not everyone enjoys a ‘blank page’. This is one of the reasons why some people go with a Register Office ceremony. It’s overwhelming. The choice is too much. It is easier to go with what is known to us, something done for us, or something we’ve seen before. So what to do? Try these 3 tips

writing your ceremony — Sit down with a cup of tea and snacks in your favourite chair and pick up a pen and paper! Thank you to Will Pace at Paper Wolf Photography for this image

Pen, Paper comfy chair, drinks & treats and preferably a cat

If you have a fancy notebook pick it up. If you don’t have a fancy notebook, buy one. If you are more technological sit at your laptop. Boil the kettle, pour a glass of wine, chomp on chocolate and make sure there is a pet nearby to listen to your ideas!

#TOP TIP 1 ‘What DON”T we want?!”

ALWAYS start with this.

Write it as your first heading. As soon as you do it will become clear to you that you actually know much more of what you want than you realised!

Usually, if you’ve chosen me, you Don’t want formal, Don’t want bored guests, Don’t want too serious. So write that down.

We don’t want…..jugglers, fire eaters, bible readings, Justin Beiber…whatever

Think about the worst wedding you ever attended. Why did you hate it? What was it that turned you off, got on your nerves, bored you to death?! Write it down.

Think about the worst TV, or movie Wedding you ever saw. Anything. Maybe it was a wedding on Eastenders or Married at First Sight, or Marrying Mum & Dad! (I actually worked one of these btw) they dressed as Kangaroos is all I’m saying!

Anyway write any of these down too.

Here’s the evidence!

A rare foray into BBC TV career. I did a wedding for this pair of kangaroos who allowed their 13 year old son to create their ceremony — Marrying Mum and Dad TV series. The only Kangaroos i’ve ever married to date

#TOP TIP 2 What do we LOVE?

These are a few of my favourite things!

So, next, think about the very best wedding you ever attended. If you’ve never attended any, think of your favourite TV or Movie ‘Wedding’. What comes to mind?! Why do you love it? What do you love about it? Can you incorporate any of the ideas in it into your Wedding Ceremony. There are so many when you think about it. From Friends to Schitt’s Creek and everything in between.

Write them all down!

handfasting — Involve all the family. This is the Mother of the Bride tying the hands of the couple in an ancient tradition. Thank you to Charlotte Burn at Charlotte Burn Photography https://www.charlotteburnphotography.com/

#TOP TIP 3 Beginning, middle & end

Now think about 3 sections. It sounds obvious I know, but just write down Beginning, Middle, End as headings in your fancy book.

Beginning. How do you want it all to start? Are you walking down the aisle? Do you want someone to walk you down? Are you walking in together? Are you not having an aisle?

entrance of the bride — Often a bride will choose to walk down the aisle with their Dad, but sometimes they choose someone else, or as Sophie did, they also walk down with their Best Woman. You might be surprised by how much people still love this tradtion!

End: Think about the ending next! How you want it to end? Will there be confetti? Bubbles? Sparklers? A champagne toast. Do you want ‘you may kiss the bride’? Do you want people to ‘please be upstanding’ ? Do you want to be declared ‘MR & MR”, ” Bride and Groom”, ‘Bob and Shirley” (not real people). I had one amazing couple who had the names Taylor and Handy and so I announced them as The Handy-Taylors. A lot of these decisions will be guided by your own values. How you identify, you experiences of gender and the dynamics of your relationship.

Do you want music at the end? A confetti shot? There are quite a lot of decisions for how to end a ceremony!

Endings — to me the END is just the BEGINNING! This end part marks the beginning of all the new things that lie aheadhttps://www.charlotteburnphotography.com/

FINALLY

Think about the middle. If this ceremony was a sandwich. What would be the filing? Now you look back at every last thing on your list that you really don’t want. Eliminate them immediately. There may be a poem you hate or a particular bug bear. Let them go. You have no obligations.

Now think about all those things on your ‘we love’ list. Add them in. Consult a Celebrant like me. We have loads of ideas of our own which we can’t wait to share, all the time. We also have seen lots of other people’s ideas. Use us! Some people want simple, others more fancy. Do you want to make vows or promises or pledges? Do you want prayers? Do you want poems? A flashmob? Live music? The world is your oyster! I’m not even sure if that is still an expression anyone uses in 2022? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?

And that my lovely couples is how to banish the Snow Blindness in 3 easy steps! HAPPY PLANNING!

Civil Celebrant in Brighton, creating ceremonies for people who know who they are