Suddenly confused on ceremony

wannabemrs

Thanks guys, I feel a lot better just from reading your posts

TheSeventh

We're having a Humanist ceremony and trust me - you can have anything you want! I agree with the above poster who suggested showing the Humanist celebrant the script that you do like. They're trained to deliver the wedding YOU want so don't be afraid or worried that one sample script wasn't to your taste! Just go back and say you'd like something different!

When we were working on our ceremony, we were shown loads and loads of samples of the various sections. An awful lot of them we just didn't like at all - we even cut out entire sections that were irrelevant to us, and wrote a piece that the celebrant had never heard of being done before - you can do anything!

ellay864

cats2012 wrote: »

Mine's in a church because althought I'm not religious I am a bit spiritual and I love the history and tradition of marriage, so a church was pretty important.

Having been to civil ceremonies since it was definitely the right choice as they just wouldn't suit us at all.

Maybe the standard civil ceremony wording wouldn't suit but you can do what you like aside from the legal wording. OH and I wote our own vows and didn't use any of the standard stuff, we had my son do a reading I chose, another friend wrote a very personalised reading for us, we chose our music and that included a song my OH wrote and recorded for me.
All our guests said they loved the fact it was so personal and also fun, and several said they found it meant so much more than the curch weddings they've been to. If the church means a lot then that's fine, but please don't assume civil ceremony has to be cold/boring/emotionless

cats2012

ellay864 wrote: »

Maybe the standard civil ceremony wording wouldn't suit but you can do what you like aside from the legal wording. OH and I wote our own vows and didn't use any of the standard stuff, we had my son do a reading I chose, another friend wrote a very personalised reading for us, we chose our music and that included a song my OH wrote and recorded for me.
All our guests said they loved the fact it was so personal and also fun, and several said they found it meant so much more than the curch weddings they've been to. If the church means a lot then that's fine, but please don't assume civil ceremony has to be cold/boring/emotionless

Oh no not at all sorry if it sounded like I meant that! They weren't cold/boring at all, they were just very different and didn't capture the tradition and history of marriage in they way I'm used to it, but it really is just a personal choice.

I'm a bit of a history geek so absolutely love the idea of standing in a beautiful building with hundreds of years of history where hundreds of people have married before me making the same vows and adding my name to the list

minerva_windsong

I agree with the suggestion of taking the ceremony wording that you like to the humanist celebrant (with the God references removed) and seeing what she says. Just because you don't like the standard script doesn't mean you have to have that - I'm not an expert but I'm guessing a Humanist ceremony is fairly similar to a civil ceremony, where as long as you say the legal words then you can do pretty much whatever you want.

I always wanted a civil ceremony, mainly for similar reasons as others have said above - I don't really go to church other than for weddings, funerals and christenings, but my family are regular churchgoers and it feels hypocritical for me to have a church wedding and make promises to a God I don't believe in but they do. OH would have liked a church for the history and because he has a friend who plays the organ so could have done the music, but the venue we're almost certainly going for is an old medieval building so it will have that history element.

wannabemrs

H2B and I had a really long chat last night, which came down to the fact that if we go civil/humanist then my faith is excluded, but if we can get my friend to play about with his ceremony a bit more, then we can both be covered and comfortable.

H2B went through the ceremony and noted all the areas he had issues with, with suggested changes, and I sent that through to my friend today. He has come up with some brilliant suggestions to ensure that no one feels excluded or forced to take part in the religious sections, and the vows and promises that we make to each other have no mention of God.

Feel really positive about it now, and glad we had the discussion, I don't think I had realised how important it was to me that we include some religion, until we were discussing in depth not having any.