Our Wedding Day: Part 2
Our wedding ceremony... one of the shortest but obviously most important part of our wedding day. So of course, we wanted to put as much thought and effort into this part of the day as we possibly could. As with everything else, we wanted to be very intentional about the decisions we made for our ceremony and having it be true to who we were (can you sense a theme yet?).
Some of the ways we did this was having it outdoors (I am forever grateful to every single one of you reading this who sat out there, bundled in jackets and blankets - we truly appreciated all of you for braving the cold!), having an unplugged ceremony (so that when we looked out at the people that surrounded us, we would see their faces instead of their cameras) having a friend play music as I walked down the isle (thank you Mike!), and writing our own vows.
We also very much wanted to honour our families, as we would not have gotten to this part of our journey without their support. The first way we did this was by having Eric’s sister in law, Hilary, marry us. We made this decision the day we got engaged - we asked each other who we thought should marry us and both of us right away thought of Hilary. We agreed that it would be so special and meaningful to have one of our family members pray over us, read words of encouragement, and announce us as husband and wife. Hilary did such an amazing job and we couldn’t imagine having anyone else.
The second way we chose to honour our families was by asking my grandparents to read our selected bible verse:
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another.
Romans 12: 9-16
We loved these words as it outlines not only what loving your spouse looks like, but also what it takes to show love in your community - in very simple, practical ways. These verses were printed out and hung on our wall as a daily reminder of the promise we not only made to each other, but to those that surround us as well.
Lastly, we chose to honour our family by having our immediate family members come up during our ceremony and pray over us.
While our ceremony ended up being just around 15 minutes, they were the best 15 minutes of the day. It may be easy to skip on the details and rush through this part of the day so you can get to the party afterwards, but I encourage you to slow down and be very intentional about your ceremony. Don't let your "unconventional" ideas stand in the way of a ceremony that is meaningful and true to your story; instead, choose to honour whatever it is that brought you to this moment, whether it’s your spiritual journey, your community or your family.
