My Vision

Sometimes I worry what people will think of our wedding.  When they see all the details will they wrinkle up their noses?  Will they think I've gone overboard?  Should I even care?

The truth is that I've put so much of myself into this wedding, trying to make it a reflection of who C & I are as a couple as well as a celebration.  I think I'd be really hurt if I found out that people were looking down on the things that I chose or created.

I'm not so worried about my friends as I am about our families and our older guests.  I think that for a very long time weddings were so cookie-cutter that you didn't stray much from the formula.  While I want us to have a traditional  wedding, I want to put our touches on it.  We're not going crazy, but the nerdy details and my colored shoes and the songs we'll pick might not fit with the traditional pattern.

BUT, I think the important thing to remember is that this day is going to look the way I want it to look.  That it will be a celebration of Love in the way that I want to celebrate.

The reason I'm thinking of all this is because I'm trying to come up with something to do as a Unity ritual during our ceremony and I hate everything I've heard of.  The traditional way is to do the Unity Candle, but what do you do with the candle when you're done?  A guy at work told me his dog ate his, what is that?  

There also things like a sand ceremony (again, what do you do with the sand), a Rose ceremony (you take flowers from your moms to become one bouquet?), a wine ceremony (you mix wines and both drink), and even planting a tree together.  None of those things speak to me.  I thought we'd be resigned to the candle and I'd have to be ok with it.

But then I heard of the wine box.  The concept is fairly simple, you place a bottle of wine and a letter you've each written in a box to be sealed for a period of time.  The letters are supposed to talk about why you're getting married, why you fell in love with eachother, what you're feeling at that time.  The idea is that if your marriage is ever in jeopardy you are supposed to open the box, drink the wine, read the letters and remember why you did this crazy thing in the first place.

It's been modified by couples to be opened every 5 years, to include letters from their parents, to nail the box shut during the ceremony among other things.  I even heard of one couple that had guests contribute things with a certain year on them (4th year, 10th year) for the couple to open on that anniversary.

Finally, the wine box speaks to me.  Something I can see us doing for the rest of our marriage.  I'd like to seal the box for one year and then celebrate our first year of marriage by opening the box.  Then reseal it with new letter and new wine for another year and on and on.

What a great way to celebrate, don't you think?