How to Create your own Wedding Ceremony

In Crafting Secular Ritual, author Jeltje Gordon-Lennox provides the tools you’ll need to craft your own secular wedding ceremony, by splitting the process into three stages: Planning, Creating, Realizing.

Before you start however, it can be useful to draw up a ceremony checklist, so that you can keep on top of all three stages. Follow this link to download your exclusive Wedding Ceremony Checklist from Crafting Secular Ritual.

Sample Order of a Wedding Ceremony

• Entrance music – guests gather for the ceremony; participants and parents enter the ceremonial space; the couple enter, separately or together
• Welcome and explanations – celebrant
• Readings – friends and relatives (alternate with 30–60 seconds of music)
• Partners confirm their intention to marry
• Taking turns the couple recite a special text for their partner
• Joint wedding vow
• Symbolic gesture of the vow (wedding rings, kiss)
• Closing words – celebrant
• Exit music – the couple leave the ceremonial space followed by their guests

Page 128, Crafting Secular Ritual.