Can you make a Wedding Ceremony ‘unique’?

I love this post written by my fellow celebrant from White Knot Weddings, Julia Tsiaka  (originally posted here) so I am sharing it with you!

I am a Huff Post Weddings blog fan.  Recently a blog post by Marta Segal Block entitled ‘Why ‘unique’ weddings are a myth’ attracted my interest.

I had to agree with the main drift of the article – out-doing the previous bride does seem to have become something of a competitive sport in modern weddings.  Unique and different often leans toward whacky and down-right weird in some cases.  In the worst scenarios what should have been oh-so-memorable becomes prefer-to-forget-able!

The article goes on to point out that whatever you do, your wedding is never going to be unique.   No matter what you dream up for your special day, it is all still a part of the tradition of celebrating your wedding day.

Up until this point, Marta’s points rang very true IMO.  Now here’s where we part ways.

Marta summarises with, “Getting married makes you part of a tradition, and traditions are built on doing the same thing over and over again.”

I agree that getting married makes you part of a tradition.  Isn’t that what gay and lesbian couples have been fighting for all these years?  The reason we get married is that we want to announce that our relationship has changed status, from temporary to permanent.  We want to call our partner “husband” or “wife” and we want our family, friends and the people that we meet to acknowledge us as a couple.

But that doesn’t have to mean celebrating that marriage with a traditional wedding ceremony that just isn’t “you”.

Enter the marriage celebrant!

A marriage celebrant doesn’t just conduct your ceremony, he/she creates it.  In fact, the fee you pay to a marriage celebrant is mostly for the creation of your wedding ceremony and not so much for the officiating.

With the assistance of a celebrant, you can most definitely make your wedding ceremony unique.  You will have the option to add any readings, music, unity rituals and wording that you want.  A celebrant will allow you the freedom to do anything you want and will guide you by making suggestions that you can mould to make completely your own.

My own personal method of working is to get to know the couple (albeit electronically most of the time) and then draft a ceremony script that is completely unique to them.  I add suggestions for readings and rituals and then ask the couple to edit the script to make it their own.  With most couples there are lots of changes and the script goes back and forth quite a few times before we get it absolutely right.

The point is that any celebrant worth their salt will be able to make your wedding ceremony as unique as the couple that you are.

So don’t wait, before you jump into the “same old” for your wedding ceremony, contact a celebrant.