Planning a Perfect Wedding – Balance Holiday and Marriage at Your Perfect Holiday Wedding

You obviously love the holidays or you wouldn’t have chosen to get married now. So how do you incorporate that love of the holidays into your wedding and yet still keep the focus on the fact that you and your beloved are getting married?

Wedding Ceremony: Weddings really are about marriage, so that should be the deepest focus or theme, particularly of the ceremony. But it’s great to incorporate Talk in the ceremony about the meaning of the holidays to you. Why did you choose to be married now? Is it the festivities or is it also the deeper meaning of the season? Whatever your religious tradition, here are some common thoughts about Midwinter (OK, I’m not writing about you my dear Southern Hemisphere friends!), the time of the dark:

• It is a brisk and sparkling season of hope, joy and peace. Those are wonderful sentiments in which to base your marriage.
• It is a season of community. The holidays are often the time of year that we make time to visit with extended family and family friends. Describe your wedding as an extension of that notion of visiting and hospitality.
• It is a season of wonder. In the dark and the cold, so much is possible. The ancient agricultural meanings for this season were sorting through the seeds you wished to plant in the coming year. Plant marriage, that’s a great thing!
• It’s a season of beauty: black, white, silver, gold, ruby, emerald, blue, candles and fairy lights.

Wedding Vows:

• I might start my wedding vows out with something like: I stand with you, before our community, in this season of hope, joy and peace, to join my life to yours…
• You could also commit to observing the traditions as part of your promises to one another: to keeping the all the holidays that are seasonal markers of this sacred relationship.
• And then, focus on your wedding promises that will keep your marriage through the entire year and not just flourishing in the holidays!

Wedding Reception:

• Serve traditional holiday foods: Turkey, Duck, Christmas Cake
• Have traditional holiday activities: carol, play games, light a menorah or Kwanza candles.
• Use Holiday Decorations: (Hint: this can sometimes save you money because people are already decorated for the holidays.) “Oh, look Harry, the Ritz Carlton decorated in honor of Kim and Tina’s wedding!” Make them have meaning though. Who’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to you? If you’re into sustainability, he could be someone, but if not, maybe not…
• Have band or dj play holiday music: OK, careful here. Play SOME holiday music, but not ONLY holiday music. Let’s dance!

I would caution you, no matter what your religious beliefs, against too much religiosity. Tell people if this is a marriage based in your shared faith, but you want to keep the focus on your marriage, because you will need to keep your focus on your marriage. You also want to keep including all your guests, some of whose religious beliefs may be different from yours, because you’re looking for your community’s support.