How to let your friends know you are having a quaker ceremony...

Why hello again...

I've sort of been out of the wedding blogging loop for a bit now, but since wedding season is upon us, and I have some things to post from a wedding I attended last weekend, I thought I'd answer a few questions that people have been pestering me about! 

(Just kidding, the pestering is a welcome thing!)

I get a lot of emails asking me how we let our friends & family know our ceremony would be open to (and really depend on) their public comment.  For the most part our guests have internet and were looking at our wedding website for information about our wedding, so the first thing we did was to post this page on our website:

While we are not Quakers, we will be holding our wedding ceremony as an edited version of a Quaker Friends Meeting, or Quaker ceremony. After we say our promises to each other, our guests will have an opportunity to say something nice before we exchange rings. Heartfelt toasts or excerpts from texts are examples of what you might prepare for the ceremony. Messages may be literal or metaphorical, and about anything appropriate to the joy and solemnity of the occasion—love, family, marriage, life, or what you will.

Please keep your message relatively short (no more than a few minutes) so that all those who would like to speak will have a chance to do so without the ceremony going on for hours!

Wikipedia says this about Quaker ceremonies:

Since traditionally Friends have no clergy, there is no one person to “marry” them. Instead they declare themselves married before God and those gathered. Usually, there are no bridesmaids or other special roles in the wedding other than that of bride and groom.

The couple then signs the Quaker wedding certificate which, for the purposes of the meeting, means they are now married. All those present are invited to share messages with the gathered meeting as they feel led (as in any other Meeting for Worship, see main article on the Society of Friends). At the close of worship all those present at the meeting are asked to sign the wedding certificate as witnesses. Often the certificate is hung prominently in the home of the couple as a reminder of the promises they made, and of the people with whom they shared that moment of their lives.

Since some of our guests don't have internet, we also casually spread the word to our friends and family and asked that they pass the message along to other family members and friends.  We didn't really go out of our way to push this, but we knew the word was getting around a bit.  

Finally, at the ceremony we had our officiant/friend say this:

At the beginning of the ceremony, the bride and groom will stand and exchange vows. After this, anyone may stand and speak if so moved. While messages are welcome, periods of silence are expected and are a time for reflection.

If you would like to speak, please stand as the last person finishes. Messages may be literal or metaphorical, and about anything appropriate to the joy and solemnity of the occasion—love, family, marriage, life, or what you will.

A few people who hadn't prepared anything did stand at this time to say something quick.  Some of these spontaneous speeches were some of the best, so I'm happy to report that even if people don't get the message to speak, they might do so anyway!  I think a key part of this working was mentioning that periods of silence are part of the process.  There weren't any super long pauses, but it allowed for pause without that signaling the end of the ceremony, giving people a bit of time to reflect and build up the courage to talk.  

I went to a wedding over the weekend that had an open component to the ceremony and while it was lovely, it didn't work quite as well as it did at P and my wedding.  I have a few thoughts on why that might be that I thought I'd share for the sake of future quaker weddings:

First, they had a very substantial ceremony surrounding the open part that was powerful all on it's own.  Our ceremony really was the quaker component, so people hadn't been sitting for more than a few minutes before we opened it up.  So if you want to make your wedding open, either keep the rest of the ceremony relatively short or do the open part in the beginning.  

Their wedding day was also blazing hot so I think people were uncomfortable sitting in the sun.  They couldn't have done much about that, but a shady, or otherwise comfortable area for the ceremony (if it's outdoors) probably would be best for this type of ceremony.

Finally, I don't know that people were prepared for the pauses that happen in a quaker ceremony.  People seemed uncomfortable when nobody was talking, so that may have led to a premature end to the open speaking.  

Despite all that, people did speak at their wedding and said some amazing things.  I just know there were people in attendance who might have said something more if they'd been more comfortable.  

Hope that helps and feel free to keep the questions coming!

Wedding Recap: A Marriage by Friends

While I already did a detailed post of our wedding ceremony here (including the text of the ceremony), to continue in order I thought I'd go on with another ceremony recap here. I meant for it it be short, but somehow it's the longest recap post yet! I really loved our ceremony. It takes the cake for my favorite part of our wedding. That surprised me because I really didn't care that much about it prior to the wedding. I kind of thought that it was something to get through to get to the party fun part. But, it's also the part of the wedding I've gotten the most positive feedback about. People loved it.

First, a bit of background. Since neither of us are religious, we knew we didn't want a religious ceremony. But we also didn't want to pay some random person to officiate a ceremony for us. It just seemed too impersonal for something so personal. So we asked around to our friends, and finally came up with the idea to have a quaker-style ceremony. Basically we had one of our friends M.C. the ceremony (our program called her the "Ringmaster") and we opened it up to others to speak.

We spread the word before the wedding that we'd be doing that--we posted something on our wedding website and then made sure to pass the word along to people we didn't think were checking there. I have to admit that I was nervous about enough people speaking, but honestly, even a few of the things that were said would have been enough. Everything was so touching. And as it turns out a ton of people spoke!

P. & our ringmaster (Susan) head up to the front for the start of the ceremony. Apparently P was very concerned that they'd brought water up to the front because he thought I'd be upset that it was in the pictures. I actually didn't notice until he told me.

We literally didn't figure out how we were all going to get to the front until about ten minutes before the ceremony. At that point it was decided that the easiest way would be for P. and Susan to go to the front first and then have the rest of the bridal party walk down the aisle. Then my dad and I followed. Apparently we were cracking up the whole way. I think it was because we both realized we were walking insanely fast and were going to get to the front about two minutes before the song ended. Or maybe just because we are both dorks.
Once we were all up front we stood up there for a bit while the song played and we tried to get the attention of our DJ to cut it (seriously it had about two minutes left).
I think this picture is right after I walked partway up the aisle where he could see me and made a big "cut" sign to the dj. I'm classy.
The wedding party stood for the first part of the ceremony, where Susan explained a quaker ceremony and we said our vows, which we'd written for each other and kept secret. They actually ended up being almost identical, which was pretty sweet.
There were a lot of funny moments in our ceremony. We were all really nervous so that helped.
Paul read his vows first. They were very sweet and kind of funny...
I went next. I was very, very nervous. I hate speaking in front of people, and I tend to do this rocking back and forth thing (uh, sort of like I have a tick or something), so I was trying to focus on not doing that while still being in the moment.
After we said our vows, we all sat down and Susan opened it up to others to speak. I won't go into details about what all was said, but there was everything from poetry, to political rants (his brother), to Darwin (my dad), to stories about our childhoods, to mocking my ex-boyfriends (from my best friend's dad).



His dad played us a song he wrote while his step-sister sang...
There was a lot of hugging...

After everyone had spoken who wanted to do so, P's friend read our wedding certificate and we signed it. After the ceremony everyone else signed it (including some people multiple times).
Then Susan took over again and read a bit about our hands and how we use them in affection and work and looking at our rings on them reminds us of our love. We asked everyone to hold hands for this bit. Pictures of people holding hands make me happy.
I'm really bad at right and left. Something that slipped through the cracks during my homeschooling youth. Anyway, I couldn't remember what hand I was suppose to put P's ring on so I had to do that trick where you make an "L" shape with your fingers to tell which hand is left (your left hand makes an L, your right makes a backwards L). Here's me doing that...
People laughed at me. It was fine :)

Then Susan said something like "Since I assume you're moved to do so, you should go ahead and kiss!" So we did. Only we looked really funny so there are no good pictures of it. I swear. In hind site, the problem with us kissing is that we were standing too far apart so we were leaning in like crazy to try and kiss. Stand close to your partner!
There were horses running around in the background while we walked up the aisle. They were excited too.

I am so in love with my friends right now

One of the things that didn't make it into our wedding budget was a videographer. While I understand that wedding videos probably never get watched more than a few times, and it really isn't worth the expense (and they are expensive...whoo boy), after our AMAZING and totally unscripted ceremony, I was feeling very bummed out about not having captured it. A few people responded to my request to send me what they said, but several just spoke from the heart and didn't have it memorized or written down.

So, I was beyond thrilled when I was handed a dvd of about an hours worth of wedding footage today! Apparently one of my friend's husbands videotaped most of the ceremony and a few other snippets of the wedding with their digital camera. Because it was taken with a digital camera, it isn't the best quality video ever, but he did a great job putting it together, and the footage of our ceremony is so precious. Both my husband and I were practically in tears watching it again.

Bottom line...Our friends continue to amaze me with their awesomeness and how much they pulled together to help make our wedding happen.

And if you think you might regret not having video, find someone to take footage with their digital camera or their phone or whatever. This was one of my few wedding regrets and I am so, so happy to have this video.

having your friends and family marry you

I mentioned this a ways back, but legally we got our marriage certificate back in January so that I could hop onto P's health insurance. Doing that opened up some possibilities for our ceremony since we didn't need to have someone legally marry us. We put the word out to our friends and family that we were looking for someone who wouldn't mind officiating. And after not hearing anything back (except that people felt that it was too much responsibility to be in charge of actually marrying us), I begged/conned one of our good friends into doing it, with the agreement that we'd have a quaker ceremony and that it wouldn't require her to actually do much. Secretly I'd always thought she'd do an amazing job though and we'd been kind of pulling for her to do it all along.

While P and I aren't quaker (we aren't anything, actually), we liked the idea that instead of one person proclaiming you to be married, that your community comes together to support your union. I'm going to post the text of our ceremony (which we lifted from indiebride and then edited to fit our needs), so you can see how the whole thing worked.
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(We walked in to "Every Morning" by Keb Mo, which is beautiful, but since we never practiced anything before the actual ceremony was about three minutes longer than the 30 seconds it took us all to gather in the front. That ended with me making a big "cut" sign to our friend in charge of music and everyone laughing at the endless music. Silly things like that, my dogs deciding that they needed to hang out with us during the ceremony and my little cousin having to run up and grab my puppy who was attacking my dress, and horses making horse noises in the background really made our ceremony personal for us.)

(Officiant Friend):
We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding of Paul and Katie. Our ceremony today will be conducted in the manner of a Meeting of Friends, or Quaker Meeting.

At the beginning of the ceremony, the bride and groom will stand and exchange vows. After this, anyone may stand and speak if so moved. While messages are welcome, periods of silence are expected and are a time for reflection.

If you would like to speak, please stand as the last person finishes. Messages may be literal or metaphorical, and about anything appropriate to the joy and solemnity of the occasion—love, family, marriage, life, or what you will.

After a short time we will read the marriage certificate and Katie and Paul will sign it and exchange rings. Following this, everyone is invited to sign the marriage certificate in confirmation of your support of the union.

(P said his vows here, which were lovely and basically exactly like mine even though we hadn't seen each other's before).

(Then I said my vows, after remarking that "I think we wrote the exact same vows!")

(Officiant Friend)
Now if anyone would like to speak, please feel free to stand and do so.

(Open talking time - We sat for this part, which was AMAZING. We knew there were a few people who were going to talk, but so many people surprised us and said something. And what people said was so, so powerful and awesome. People read poems, blessings, told stories about us as individuals and as a couple, his dad and stepsister sang/played a song that his dad had written. It really was one of the best 45 minutes of my life.)

(Officiant friend)
Thank people for sharing. Now we will hear the reading of the marriage certificate.

(Best man)

On this the twentieth day of September in the year
Two thousand and eight
In the town of Palo Cedro, California

Katherine XXXXX &
Paul XXXXXXX

Took each other by the hand and joyfully declared themselves married, promising to be loving and equal partners as long as they both shall live.

As confirmation and celebration of this commitment we set our hands.

And we, as members of their loving community, set our hands in witness and pledge to celebrate and support this union.
(Katie & P Sign certificate)

(Officiant friend)
Now, take hands. And all of you who love each other, please take each others' hands as well. To reach out to someone and be acknowledged and loved is a human need. Taking the hand of one who loves you is a powerful symbol of that unspoken bond.

Your hands are also the part of you that you use the most. As you go about your daily work and play, your ring is a tangible reminder of the promises you’ve made to each other. It will always be with you, visible, worn openly and with pride.

As you exchange rings, declare your commitment to one another.

(Me)
I give you this ring as a symbol of my commitment to you and our family.

(P)
I give you this ring as a symbol of my commitment to you and our family.

(Officiant friend)
And now, assuming you are moved to do so, you can go ahead and kiss!

(At that point music was suppose to start playing again but we had some technically difficulties so officiant friend said something like "This sort of occasion calls for some music!" to prompt music friend to start playing the song, not realizing that he was just having tech difficulties. So we all kind of stood around and smiled for a minute until he started the music.)

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(pictures taken by my cousin during and immediately after the ceremony)

we're back!

Actually, we're still at my parent's house but we're married and all that good stuff. The wedding was perfect. A flawed perfection in certain ways (there were a few timing mishaps), but perfect. Our guests keep telling us they had fun, we had fun, there was a lot of dancing, the food was great, and the day was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

I am in love with my wedding and my wonderful husband.



















Ceremony shot stolen from my friend's facebook. I have no idea what I'm doing with my arms here, but you get the idea. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that the horses ARE in the background! I wonder if someone threw carrots over the fence for them :)