Weddings are a beautiful ceremony. Celebrating love, happiness, and unity, they symbolize two people joining together to make one.
One of the special things you can do at a wedding is practise a unity ceremony. This can be a small (or big) act in which you and your partner mark your unification moment with a gesture. Whether planting a tree, lighting a candle, or tying your hands together with ribbon, you can do whatever feels right.
What we love about unity ceremonies is that you can include the whole family and friends!
So, let’s jump right in and offer some ideas for unity ceremonies.
Traditional Unity Ceremonies: A Brief Overview
As an event manager, you want to create the best possible wedding for your client possible. One of these tasks might be to organize a unity ceremony.
Now, depending on the type of ceremony that your client has requested, this could either be a group activity or just between the newlyweds.
No matter where your client is getting married, you can help create their dream unity ceremony by offering fun and meaningful suggestions.
7 Innovative Unity Ceremony Ideas
We’ve started off our list with some creative ideas that you can present to the happy couple that are quite simple. From lighting a candle to planting a tree, these simple but meaningful unity ceremony ideas should inspire.
Artistic Fusion Ceremonies
1. Sand-pouring ceremony: One of the most classic ceremonies is sand pouring! This moment quite literally represents the couple becoming one. Each partner takes a glass with some sand and pours it into one bigger glass. As an event manager, you can suggest colored sand, or maybe a specific shape of glass that your client might want.
2. Candle-lighting ceremony: Similar to the above, the candle-lighting ritual sees the happy couple lighting one candle with their individual ones. This is a lovely way for the married couple to remind themselves of their wedding day as they can place their candle in their home afterward. You can make it fun by matching the candle color to their wedding theme, or…
3. Making a candle: If your client has come to you asking for a similar idea to the candle lighting but they aren’t sure if that’s what they want exactly, we suggest making their own candle. We know, this is very creative and might be a bit messy, but it could be super fun! It’s a really nice way to involve the wedding party, as the candle needs to be dipped numerous times in wax. You could even suggest doing this after the official wedding ceremony. This can also double up as a gift, as people can make their own candles to take home.
4. Put a puzzle together: A fantastic group activity! Building a puzzle is something that you can involve the whole family in. What we love about the puzzle as a unity celebration is that you can be really wholesome with it. For example, you can get the couple’s face printed onto a puzzle and have a piece for every member of the wedding. The newlyweds can frame this, or keep it and re-build the puzzle every year on their anniversary.
5. Portraiture ceremony: For any of those artist couples out there, or even for the fun couples, this will be a hit. For this unity ceremony, you present the couple with a small-ish canvas and a few paint colors. The couple then paints a portrait of each other, either while looking into each other's eyes (aka not seeing the canvas) or timed. This is a fun way to celebrate their new trust and love for each other, and the best part is they can frame their portraits and keep them forever.
Literary and Cultural Unity Concepts
1. Dedicate/start writing a book: Okay, this one is fun. So, you know how some weddings have guest books where guests can write happy notes for the couple? Well, why not make it into a book? As the unity ritual, the wedding couple can write a dedication to each other. Then either they continue writing the book from home (or even every anniversary), or the guests fill some pages out. As the event manager, make sure you have writing utensils! Plus, you know how those often go “missing”... All we’ll say is to have backups.
Culinary Unity Ceremonies
1. Make a meal together: For all the foodies out there, this is the most wholesome unity ritual you could suggest. When discussing unity celebrations with the couple, ask them if they like to cook any special meals together. Remember, you’re most likely working with minimal utensils and kitchenware. In this case, we recommend meals like guacamole, sandwiches, or even toppings on pre-cooked pizzas. Whatever (easily preparable) meal means something to the couple, they could make it together as their unification gesture. Heads up – ensure there are plenty of napkins and water involved – no spills on the special outfits!
3 Unique Nature-Inspired Unity Ceremonies
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Botanical and Gardening Concepts
1. Tree-planting ceremony: What we love about this gesture is that it works for any event location. All you need to do is ensure there is a pot, some planting tools, and the tree of choice! For the happy couple, planting a tree together signifies so much more than just unity. The act of getting their hands dirty, having to work together to plant the tree, and then watching the tree over time is so rewarding. Depending on the venue location you are managing, you could even suggest they plant their tree on your grounds, or in a public space. This way, weddinggoers will also be able to see the growth of the tree throughout the years to come.
2. Making a wreath: A hands-on approach to the unity ceremony, making a wreath is a beautiful way to mark unification. As the event manager, you could play a very special role in this gesture. One of the ways you can make this even more special is by using local foliage. You could amp up the emotional levels by asking the wedding party to perhaps share stories about the newlyweds with each different piece of nature.
3. Releasing lanterns/butterflies: Okay, so technically releasing lanterns isn’t nature-inspired, but releasing butterflies is. Releasing either lanterns or butterflies can be a beautiful way to solidify the unity ceremony. While this may be a bit of a hassle for you to organize (and potentially get clearance for), it will truly make the celebration unique. With lanterns, this can be done either during the day or night, but a candle inside the lantern at night looks amazing. The release of the lanterns can also be done with the wedding party, with each person wishing the happy couple. Similarly, with the butterflies, the releasing act signifies the couple's hopes and dreams for the marriage being solidified into the world.
4 Cultural and Heritage-Inspired Unity Ceremonies
Managing a wedding is stressful. Having the pressure to create the perfect day for the couple eats away at you. Then, on the day itself, you are most likely managing not only the event, but also different family members, drunk people, and any other bits that get in the way.
One of the ways that you can make life a bit easier for both yourself and the newlyweds is by suggesting some more traditional unity rituals that could appease family members.
Traditional Cultural/Religious Rituals
1. Take communion: One of the most popular Christian unity rituals, taking communion together as a married couple can be a very meaningful event. Talk to the priest and couple beforehand about the best approach to this method.
2. Hand-fasting ceremony: A traditional Celtic practice, hand-fasting is when the officiate ties a ribbon or piece of material around the newlywed's hands. This signifies their jointness in life now and is often accompanied by music, poetry, or words of love.
3. Stefana crown: Perhaps not a well-known tradition in America, the Greek tradition of crowing the newlyweds with crowns has been around for centuries. Once the wedding procedure has taken place, two crowns are placed upon the couple's heads. They are linked with a ribbon, and this marks their joint welcome into God’s kingdom.
4. Circling ceremony: At most Jewish weddings you’ll find the bride circling the groom seven times under the chuppah. Each circle represents how she is building a home around him, and forming the foundations for a happy marriage.
Practical Considerations and Tips
As with most events during a wedding, practice makes perfect. Although all of these unity celebration ideas are fun, we highly recommend practicing before the actual event.
As the event manager, it is up to you to make sure things run smoothly. What if your wedding couple is doing the candle-lighting ritual and it’s a windy day? These are the kinds of considerations you need to be making.
With these celebrations, we also suggest you have doubles of everything. You know how life is, things can break. Weather can also play a huge role – too hot? Something can melt or get too hot to use. And always have backups! If the painting didn’t work out, have some candles or ribbons to use instead.
Conclusion
Well, we hope you feel prepared to tackle your next wedding. We’ve given a stellar 14 ideas to present to your client if they suggest a unity celebration, so you should be brimming with thoughts to give them.
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