Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony

This book is proving to be an excellent source of ideas, wording, and suggestions for our ceremony. It covers everything from formal, traditional content to very informal and untraditional approaches, including same sex unions, etc. . Everything from openings, vows, ring exchanges, vow renewals, closings, thanking people, prose, poetry, music, and even how to handle stage fright. Lots of detailed examples and material to work with for ideas. What a gold mine! I dreaded writing vows from scratch -- this makes it fun and it stimulates ideas. When I first flipped through it (lent to me by my sis-in-law) I didn't yet appreciate its value, but now that we are writing our vows it is *immensely* helpful and really helps us formulate what we're trying to express. It's got a wide range of material, and has lots of non-religious material also. Once I see the examples, then pretty soon my own unique words come tumbling out. Tons of great real text from what feels like real people and situations.

This is a fantastic, practical resource for all types of wedding ceremonies - it provides not only sample wording, but advice on choosing rituals and readings, and things to consider for setting the tone of your wedding. There are full, sample ceremonies and lots of great information. Highly recommended!

I've read a bunch of wedding vow books, and this is the only one that I've found to be really useful. It not only covers writing vows, but also writing statments of appreciation, the celebrant's address, music, opening, closing, etc. It also asks some excellent questions, like how are people going to know the ceremony is starting? How are they going to know it is over? How are you going to put a ring on the grooms finger while you are holding a bouquet? I'm certainly not experienced with writing ceremonies; this book was a great help.

I don't usually come back to write reviews of the stuff I read, but I felt I really should for this book. My fiance and I are writing our own ceremony (not just the vows) and we kept coming back to this book for ideas. It poses questions to you that get you thinking in the right direction, has several good examples and is appropriate for those planning a non-religious ceremony or a religious ceremony. So many of the books I read focused on the vows only, or still had the traditional church overtones we were trying to avoid. It focuses on what's important to you as a couple, and it's been a great process for us to go through together. I highly recommend it!

This is an excellent tool, both for couples wishing to create their own wedding ceremony, and for celebrants in assisting their clients. Apart from Ceremonies and Celebrations by Dally Messenger, it's the most useful I have found in twenty-six years as a marriage celebrant.