Unity Ceremonies
"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination." - Voltaire
Unity ceremonies can provide a symbolic visual representation of the joining of your lives. One of these ceremonies can be a beautiful addition to your wedding, a way to personalize and 'embroider' something special to your wedding rites. There are many different unity ceremonies: candle ceremonies, wine ceremonies, sand ceremonies, hand-fasting, water ceremony, rose ceremonies, love letter box ceremony, and honey ceremony.
Love Letter Box Ceremony
In this ceremony the bride and groom have written a love letter to the other expressing their feelings for their betrothed, what they love and admire most about them, why they chose to marry each other, their hopes for their marriage, and dreams for their journey together. No one else has read the letter beside the author. During the ceremony each place their letter into a special box.
The box will remain sealed for five or ten years (the couple chooses). On their 5th/10th wedding anniversary, The couple will open the box together, read each other's letters, and reminisce about their courtship, wedding day, and the years they have shared so far as husband and wife. |
Rose Ceremony
The rose was considered a symbol of love and a single rose always meant only one thing - it meant the words "I love you." So it is appropriate that for your first gift - as husband and wife - that gift would be a single rose. |
Flower Ceremony
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~Marcel Proust
There are a few different possibilities with a flower ceremony! A flower ceremony can be used to symbolize the combining of two families on your wedding day or you can choose to let honored guests bestow blessings for your marriage or for intimately small weddings you can use it to honor those present and speak of how they each make a contribution to who you are and how important their love and support means to each of you and your marriage. Honey Ceremony
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ~Victor Hugo
This unity ceremony gives some history of honey in marriage traditions. The couple feed a tiny bit of honey to one another to give a sweet start their new life and to symbolize the sweetness of life, the sweetness of love, and a reminder to keep sweetness in their words. |
Seven Step Ceremony
A beautiful tradition used in Eastern and Western traditions. We ask that your marriage be blessed by peace and harmony always. The couple takes seven steps together and with each step the couple will make a pledge to one another or declare a blessing, with the 1st step a couple pledges to love, cherish & respect one another, with the 2nd each pledges to embrace the other’s family, with another step the couple asks/declares that prosperity will bless them, and so on to the 7th step in which the couple declare their love and friendship eternal, and that their marriage will be forever.
Wine Ceremony
“Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet, Through Love all that is copper will be gold, Through Love all dregs will become wine, through Love all pain will turn to medicine.” ~Rumi
The Unity Wine ceremony represents the blending together the lives of two special people into one marriage. This ceremony is symbolic of your intention to magnify every happiness by sharing them together and to share burdens and lighten grief when they come your way. We talk about the qualities of wine as related to characteristics in a thriving relationship as you pour wine or each sip. 
Paint Ceremony
Every marriage starts out as a blank canvas and with each word, look, and gesture a couple will add pigment here, a brush stroke there, and together they will create their marriage and with each day they share they will continue to add depth to the ‘painting’ that is their union. As a couple you will learn the art of giving, loving, serving, encouraging, and trusting.
In a Unity Paint ceremony the blank canvas represents your wedding day, the beginning. At the moment your wedding ceremony is complete the canvas will never be blank again. From that moment you both start creating your “work of art”. The paint colors signify the experiences that lie ahead, the coming together and blending represent you sharing life's experiences and flowing together. As the years progress you as a couple will see clearly what a beautiful masterpiece you two have. Each color, contrast, shadow, and blend as unique and beautiful as you two and your relationship. |
Candle Ceremony
“Love is like an eternal flame, once it is lit, it will continue to burn for all time” ~Anon
The Unity Candle represents the bringing together of two into one marriage- the joining of two friends with the added roles of husband and wife. It is the light of love and the light of new beginnings. This Unity choice can involve only the couple or it can involve parents of the couple (usually mothers), and can include children if you desire. |
Jumping the Broom, Stick or Sword
The symbolism of crossing over or jumping a stick, broom, or sword is rich. It is a Marriage Ritual said to come from a European Gypsy traditions and is also an African tribal tradition. In these rites the couple would leap over the threshold as a married couple. The broom itself can represent the Divine (the strong, solid broomstick) and our community or all humans (the straws bound together on the broomstick). Jumping over the broom represents the couple leaving behind the old and preparing for the future, a purification- sweeping away the past. It also is symbolic gesture of wanting to give help and preparing to enter into each other’s family.
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