Honoring your journey.
I enjoy working with couples to find just the right elements, language, and rituals for their ceremonies, and am honored that Wedding Venue Mapy featured an article about this topic.
Here’s Article Link:
Wedding Ceremony Outline
Humanist Celebrant Orlando is proud to be a prefrerred vendor of Wedding Venue Map!
While many couples have a single wedding ceremony followed by a reception, this isn’t working for everyone.
A trend in weddings is the extended celebration over multiple days. With guests coming in from all over, making the wedding itself a destination provides opportunities for family and friends to celebrate together in multiple ways. Or maybe you have friends & family with varying schedules & you’re making sure they can be included.
They help you craft the perfect ceremony, guiding you through stylistic choices and options that will make your wedding unforgettable. This may include weaving rituals into the ceremony and/or each event that are meaningful to you and creating ways that your friends and family (yes, even the dogs), can be integrated into the script.
From minimalist to lavish, how you decide to honor and celebrate the beginning of your journey as a married couple is a personal – and important – decision.
Everyone’s wedding is unique because every couple’s family and journey together is unique. Whether the couple & Celebrant meet at Starbucks to sign the marriage license or we craft a week-long integrated series of unforgettable wedding events for hundreds of guests, it should be exactly as you imagined.
Consult with your Celebrant for ideas and inspiration; we’ll provide the building blocks, experience, and ideas. Together, we’ll construct an amazing, perfect celebration just for YOU.
Contact Humanist Celebrant Orlando for your consultation today.
A ceremony can be provided for a couple by their officiant (notary) or celebrant (Humanist or religious clergy). Some don’t even get to review it before their wedding day.
You have a choice – The words, rituals, and experience of your ceremony can be as unique as you are! Here are some suggestions for personalizing your ceremony and vows.
Personalizing your ceremony can be as simple as answering a few questions for your celebrant, reading some samples to select elements you like, or just including your own vows or statements of love. Or, you can have a fully personalized ceremony written by you, or written for you.
It’s important to ask your celebrant or officiant if you can review the ceremony and talk to them about personalization options.
Your ceremony should reflect your values and character.
By law, you must each declare that you are willingly entering into the legal arrangement of marriage. This must be witnessed by a qualified official (Humanist or religious clergy, notary, etc) and they must sign your marriage license. This doesn’t even have to be done during the ceremony, it can be done just before we sign the marriage certificate after the ceremony.
The order of things, rituals, and language have no legal requirements other than the declaration & signing. However, religious, cultural, or family traditions may have expectations and requirements that you may want to honor.
Talk to one another about what you want in a ceremony. What does this ceremony mean to you? Maybe the words are not important – the act and symbolism are. Or you may want a humorous ceremony that friends and family will talk about for years to come. Or you may want a serious, solemn, “deep and meaningful” ceremony. Some want a combination of all of that. Together, rate these styles in order of importance.
Any of these can be crafted to have a more traditional feel or to be the most unique ceremony your friends and family have ever experienced.
That is up to you. Your ceremony might be a few minutes, or it might be an hour. Consider your guests: do you have elderly guests? Will guests be standing outdoors in a garden? Are you trying to time your kiss for a specific moment (like sunrise, or a favorite time of day?
Couples may write their own ceremony or provide enough of the ceremony to the celebrant that it can be easily organized for you.
You can certainly hire someone, such as your celebrant or another professional writer, to write a personal ceremony for you. Many celebrants have sample ceremonies you can choose from and may even allow you to use and edit them at no charge. Others may charge by the type of ceremony for personalization. You can also ask a friend or family member to write your ceremony on their own or to work with your celebrant.
HCO’s method – Humanist Celebrant Orlando has five pre-written original Humanist ceremony templates you can use as-is or edit as you’d like. They range from minimal/brief to a complete guide for a fully personalized ceremony that you craft yourselves or with your celebrant. Some guidance and assistance are built into the wedding package, or we can fully write an original, unique ceremony just for you (see Price List page).
Many couples are breaking from religious tradition and using secular ceremonies either because they are not religious themselves or because they have guests of diverse religious, secular, and spiritual backgrounds, and want a ceremony that will be meaningful and respectful to everyone there.
Humanist Celebrant Orlando specializes in non-religious ceremonies that are inspiring, compassionate, and personalized to you, honoring your journey as a couple. A Humanist Celebrant is not ethically able to use religious language, although we can weave religious elements into your ceremony through guest-led readings or songs.
Traditional wedding ceremonies may use language & order that assume antiquated binary gender “man and woman” identity. Not a web we need to be caught in. Even if you choose a template or pre-written ceremony, the order of names and use of pronouns can be adjusted.
Names. Many couples ask me to flip their names (e.g., “we’re here today to celebrant Ayden and Peyton…” and the next instance would be “Peyton and Ayden”). Others use alphabetical order rather than gender-biased order.
Pronouns. The ceremony can be written without pronouns, or incorporating each spouse’s pronouns where appropriate. E.g., “Peyton, take Ayden’s hand in yours and place the ring on zir finger as you repeat after me…”.
As mentioned above, there are only two requirements: declaration and signing. In fact, at a “sign & go” or “marry now” wedding, that’s all we do!
Beyond that, you have a Tabula Rasa – a blank slate – that you can use to create the perfect ceremony. There is no specified order and anyone can lead any section of the ceremony, but you want things to flow well. Your celebrant can help with reviewing a ceremony you write and making helpful suggestions. Some options include:
There are many ways you can exchange vows, from the most basic declaration ( e.g., “Do you take ___ to be your lawfully wedded spouse?”) to elaborate performances.
The declaration can be woven into your personal vows, or done separately with your personal vows to follow. For example, after “I do’s” are spoken, the celebrant invites each to share their personal vows or statements of love.
What’s the difference between “Vows” and “Statements of Love”?
Not much; they’re used in the same way in the ceremony. A vow is a pledge or a promise. Things you will do for one another throughout your life: love and honor, respect, etc. A statement of love might be more about what you love about that person and what you want for your future together. It may be the story of your love for the other rather than a promise to do certain things (although the declaration of lawful marriage consent must be included before or within the vows or statement of love).
This can be recited or read by each of the spouses or can be prompted by the celebrant. Or projected on a screen. Or prompted by a member or members of the wedding party or guest(s) in the audience. Be creative – especially if this is the only part of the ceremony that is personalized.
Standard vow example: I (name) take you (name) to be my lawfully wedded spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.
Here are some suggestions to help with writing your own vows or statements of love:
You can write them on your own or share your notes with your celebrant or a friend who can help you organize them.
If you’re writing your own vows – especially if keeping them secret from one another until the ceremony – it is a good idea to select one (or more) trusted friend or family member to review both spouses’ drafts. Your celebrant can also help – but someone who knows you well is a great choice. If meaningful to you, you may want to ensure that they are each about the same length and the same style and tone (e.g. humorous, whistful, or serious).
The memory of this day is yours. You’ll look back on it. If your celebrant provides a keepsake ceremony, you might read it to each other on anniversaries, or use it to renew your vows many years from now. Even a simple ceremony that takes only minutes becomes an important moment in your journey together.
How do you want to remember this day?
Life doesn’t always follow a traditional path, does it? Your journey as an individual and as a couple is unique. Someone recently reached out with their personal story and wondered if an officiant could marry them without having to do the “whole ceremony thing”.
Here are the options that a celebrant/officiant can help you with.
This is the traditional version – at the wedding ceremony the legal declaration is part of the ceremony and the marriage license is signed by the officiant then filed with the county.
It doesn’t have to have a large ceremony – sometimes called a micro wedding or minimony, a small gathering of even a few family and friends is sometimes the intimate setting that is perfect for that couple.
Some couples choose not to have a legal marriage; just a personal one. It may be that they cannot legally marry where they are, or perhaps they choose not to be legally married. Or perhaps they want to wait to be legally married later, but want to have their commitment ceremony now.
A commitment ceremony is exactly the same as any other wedding ceremony. The ceremony can contain any of the traditional elements and rituals including vows and exchange of rings – the only parts not included are the legal declaration & signing of the marriage certificate.
Some couples choose to be legally married without the ceremony. Whether they are just with a couple of witnesses to sign paperwork or even a small gathering of a few family members & friends, this option is the most minimal, economical, intimate, and practical. Sometimes it is called the “sign & go” or “marry now” option.
Some go to a courthouse and have it done there, but i’ve been told that can be too impersonal – and that sometimes they “force” a “ceremony” or religious language that isn’t wanted. Others choose to have a notary or celebrant come to them. I’ve sat with a couple at their kitchen table and completed their paperwork, met them in a park, or at a coffee shop.
Some couples choose to separate the two. They might get the legal aspect “out of the way” before heading to a destination wedding. They may want to have the legal paperwork in place to purchase a house together or some other practical reason, but want to wait for the “big ceremony” until a later date. During Covid, some couples chose to marry legally then plan a ceremony with family and friends later when they could safely bring people together again.