The Wedding Processional Order Guide To Study For Your Ceremony
Wondering about the order of walking down the aisle during your wedding ceremony? Here’s how different religions and cultures handle the wedding processional order.
One of the most-asked wedding questions is, “What’s the wedding processional order for the ceremony?” The answer: your wedding ceremony order will be decided by a few different factors, including your religious affiliation, the people who are part of your wedding party, your family members, and more. But before we dive into the specifics of who walks down the aisle and when, it’s important to understand exactly what a wedding processional is.
Wedding Ceremony Rehearsal Guide
Our team of professional wedding officiants has performed over 5,000 wedding ceremonies, and our couples occasionally ask us to be a part of their wedding rehearsal. While some officiants offer rehearsal coordination as an integral part of their services, we have found that its typically unnecessary to have the wedding officiant running the wedding rehearsal. We are perfectly happy to do wedding rehearsals for our couples for an additional fee, but the vast majority of our clients choose to do the rehearsal themselves.
Family Sand Ceremony 7
Each of you in attendance this evening were asked to be here because you hold a special place in Grooms and Brides life.
You came to honor and witness their love and commitment. GROOM and BRIDE wanted to make each of you a tangible part of this ceremony therefore, as each of you arrived this evening and entered into this scared space you were asked to spoon a small amount of white sand into a container.
They chose white sand because of the purity of your love and support to them and their family.
GROOM and BRIDE have chosen varying shades of blue sand for themselves and for Childrens names.
Each shade of blue represents each one of them.
These blues stand for the peace and calm they feel when together. It stands for the ocean waters deep and full of mystery and beauty.
Water that sustains all of life
Water a great conductor of energy
Water a simple element yet it can change and adapt to any form or environment.
At this time I ask you, GROOM and BRIDE to pour some of your sand into the container because your marriage is the foundation of your family.
Now, I ask that join you in pouring their sand together with yours to create a beautiful flow of love and energy.
Lastly, I will fill the remainder of the container with more white sand.
This white sand stands for Universal Love
A love that is eternal and never-ending.
please hold hands.
I ask all in attendance to join me in a prayer of blessing upon this beautiful family.
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How Should The Bridal Party Stand
From you and your groom, going outward, the maid or matron of honor and best man stand on either side of you. After that, the easiest way to avoid hurt feelings is to go by height. You can either do shortest to tallest or the reverse. This is an easy way to make your decision, and it has the added bonus of being visually appealing.
That said, you can choose the order of your bridal party by importance. This can place a closer friend or sibling to the center. Or, it can go by how long youve known that person. Its your wedding day, but be sensitive to how your friends and family might react make sure everyone in your wedding party knows how much you appreciate their presence.
Family Sand Ceremony 9
Parents, today you are making a life-long commitment to share the rest of your lives with each other and honor your children as well.
Your family relationship is symbolized through the pouring of these individual containers of sand one, representing each one of you, all that you are, and all that you will ever be.
There are children who will share in this marriage. The gathering of this new family will have a deep influence upon them.
We realize that in order for the home to be a happy one, it is essential that there be love and understanding between the children and the adults being married.
As you each hold your sand the separate containers of sand represent your lives to this moment individual and unique.
As you now combine your sand together, your lives also join together as one family.
You may now blend the sand together symbolizing the uniting of the children and groom/bride and groom/bride into one.
Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so will your marriage and your family be. With this marriage, these two families are joined.
Each of you are now a resource into which, as family members, you may come to, throughout your life times, for direction, meaning, and love.
Your Parents strive to provide not only the basic needs, but a nurturing and loving environment in which each of you find the confidence to reach the highest goals of your hearts, minds, and spirits.
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How A Wedding Is Supposed To Go Often Means Upholding Traditional Gender Roles
And we dont have to do that!
The wedding ceremony sequence of events we have mimicked in our own lives and seen reflected in popular culture for years usually involves heterosexual couples and weddings that have single-sex wedding parties.
However, these days, in attending the weddings of our families and friends, we realize that there are A LOT more options out there than traditional bridal guides would have us believe. For couples and wedding parties of all genders!
When we look at the weddings of same-sex couples, for example, we may realize that the roles weve placed on men and women in heterosexual ceremonies arent necessary and many couples may want to do something that feels more equal or at least more them.
So this article will give a very basic outline of what has happened historically/traditionally at many so-called typical weddings but I want to emphasize that these ceremony practices CAN and SHOULD be changed to reflect the couple whos getting married.
No one has to have an all-female bridal party, for example. Or walk down the aisle with their dad. Or even walk down an aisle at all! The possibilities are endless!
In youre interested, you can also check out the video I made about this topic on my wedding YouTube channel.
Short Funny Wedding Ceremony Script
A funny wedding script starts often with the officiant. They set the mood. If thatâs what you want and you have an officiant who can carry off a light-hearted approach to the ceremony, go with it! Be sure to not resort to dark humor, you want to remember the beauty of the day. Do you want to add humor to your wedding script? Remember you will have a wide range of family and friends at the ceremony, be sure you donât offend anyone.
âI promise to hold off secretly watching episodes of Game of Thrones â until we are actually together.â
âIn front of our friends and family gathered here, I promise to love and cherish you in good times and in bad. I promise to put down the toilet seat â and to replace the toilet roll when itâs over and to never, ever, ever forget our wedding anniversary or your birthday.â
âI vow to stand by your side when the zombie apocalypse comes and, should you be turned into one, I promise to let you bite me, so I can too be one and, therefore, stay by your side forever.â
Now thatâs love!
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What Is The Wedding Processional
The wedding processional refers to the group of people walking down the aisle in a specific order to mark the beginning of a wedding ceremony. The processional often includes a permutation of the officiant, the wedding party, flower girls, ring bearers, and the bride and groom and their parents.
Aside from the processional order, which people are involved and where they are seated vary depending on the type of religious wedding service. “Both Hindu and Jewish ceremonies include more family members than traditional or nondenominational ceremonies,” says Victoria Miller of LUXE Atlanta Events. Jewish weddings, for instance, have both parties’ grandparents walking down the aisle. While for Hindu weddings, the parents are more involved in the processional and the bride’s parents even sit with them under the traditional mandap.
Meet the Expert
Victoria Miller is the founder and lead wedding planner of LUXE Atlanta Events, a wedding planning and design firm.
If you want to switch things up and have more control over the processional, a nondenominational wedding may be more suited for you. “Jewish, Hindu, and Catholic processionals are typically more stringent than traditional or nondenominational processionals,” says Miller, so consider a nondenominational ceremony for more flexibility. Check out our ultimate wedding processional order guide below to help you with your processional needs.
Catholic Wedding Ceremony Order
A Catholic ceremony is always held in a church. The Catholic Church believes that marriage, also known as the sacrament of matrimony, is a sacred covenant between the couple and God, and because God is present in the physical church, there is no other place to celebrate a blessed union. Outdoor Catholic wedding ceremonies just do not exist. Also, couples do not write their own vows, and the marriage rites are often part of a bigger Catholic mass.
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Wedding Day Timeline: Frequently Asked Questions
I spoke to Allison Davis of Davis Row, a high end wedding planning firm in New York City. She gave us some answers to frequently asked questions about wedding day schedules .
WHAT IS THE INVITE TIME?
The invite time is the time on your invitation. The earliest guests will show up is about half an hour before this, so be prepared for that. And then there are the late guests. No matter the size of your guest list, you can put money on the fact that ten of them will be around ten minutes late, even if theyre all staying down the street from the venue. Do yourself a favor and plan on starting the ceremony at least fifteen minutes after your invite time, and get advice from your vendors if you can . In some regions, guests tend to stroll in as late as twenty-five to thirty minutes after invite time. Theres nothing more awkward than a late arrival standing at the back of the aisle because the bridesmaids are walking down. Allison Davis, Davis Row
2020 Wedding Note: If youre doing a virtual weddingthe earliest guests are likely to log on is 15 minutes early, and you have to expect a rash of technical problems that will push your start time late.
SHOULD WE HAVE A RECEIVING LINE?
2020 Wedding Note: If youre all gathering virtually it can feel easier to get quality time with guests. If you want to make sure that youve connected directly with each person, plan round-robin toasts, or just a moment where you greet each guest in turn.
WHEN SHOULD WE SERVE DINNER AT OUR WEDDING?
Ceremony Readings And Cultural Traditions
Incorporating a reading that is religious, cultural, or otherwise meaningful to you is great. However, be aware of including too many readings more than two is usually too many! A lot of brides and grooms will research their respective cultures, so they can incorporate their heritage into the ceremony in an amazing way. This truly demonstrates to your guests who you are and gives them an opportunity to learn something as well.
I even encourage my brides and grooms to incorporate traditions from other cultures that they love! From the Jewish tradition of breaking the glass, to the Lasso taken from my own Spanish culture, incorporating cultural traditions can be very personal and fun. If you are getting married in a religious institution, be sure to have everything you intend to add to your ceremony pre-approved.
For more wedding ceremony ideas, find out what should be included in a secular wedding ceremony, get inspiration for your wedding ceremony aisle décor, and listen to instrumental versions of popular songs for your ceremony music!
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Wedding Ceremony Scripts For Officiants
Most officiants like to use an outline to help them organize the ceremony and the script. It is important to consider what the couple being married wants for their wedding day. Take the time to talk to the couple so that your words reflect what they believe about marriage and their relationship.
- Closing
An example from after the declaration:
And as we all are here. I urge you to stand as witnesses as I, take as my wife/husband/partner. I promise to love you and uphold our love. To fight for us in the face of the storm, to be your joy and to dry your tears. To cherish you with every fiber of my being. I promise to stand with you and hold your hands, even when we are old and grey. This is my vow.
Then the officiant will say
Seeing that you said your vows to each other in the presence of witnesses. I , an authorized officiant under the law of , with the power vested in me by , pronounce you a couple. You can now kiss your bride.
After this, the couples receive good wishes from those present and they close.
Later Evening Wedding Day Timeline
If you want people to party until midnight, then a later-in-the-evening wedding is a good bet. It should be noted that the evening wedding tends not to be particularly kid-friendly, so if you have a large number of little ones youd like to include in your festivities, then an evening wedding may not be the best option for you . Of course the biggest win from an evening wedding, is that you can start your wedding day off by sleeping in! Highly recommended for night owls. Heres how that wedding timeline might look:
1:00 p.m.Hair and makeup / Getting ready4:30 p.m.Vendors arrive for setup4:30 p.m.Pre-ceremony photos6:00 p.m.Doors open / Room ready for guests / Pre-ceremony music starts6:30 p.m.Invite time7:00 p.m.Ceremony ends / Guests move to cocktail hour8:00 p.m.Guests move to dinner9:30 p.m.Cake cutting / Dessert served / Toasts9:45 p.m.Dancing11:45 p.m.End time / Guests out12:45 a.m.Breakdown done / Vendors depart
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Six: Costume And Props
Assuming you have asked the couple if they have any preference on your attire , make sure you have your wedding day outfit nailed down. Equal in importance to the couple’s thoughts on your outfit, you need to feel comfortable and ready to run the show. The biggest thing to remember is that you WILL be in most of the ceremony photos, make sure your choice is appropriate and that it is fairly neutral as to not steal the show. All eyes should be on the couple, not on your clothing choice.
The next big question, how will you be holding and referencing your wedding script during the ceremony?
Options:
