Ten Most Common Mistakes

                      to Avoid in Your Wedding Ceremony

1.               Waiting Too Long to Book-The best vendors are booked early. You should book your officiant as soon as you set your wedding date and book your venue.

2.               Untrained and Inexperienced Officiants-Anyone can call themselves a Wedding Officiant, and get an instant internet “ordination” for $25. With little experience and no training in liturgy or pastoral skills, hiring a novice officiant is courting disaster. You want to find a Seminary trained and experienced officiant, whether your ceremony will be religious, spiritual or secular. Always look for the Better Business Bureau shield below when searching for vendors.

 3.             Open Bar Before the Ceremony- Once people start drinking they frequently don’t want to stop right away. They bring it with them to the ceremony and it encourages noisy behavior. The ceremony is a solemn service, not a tailgate party. There is plenty of time to party after the ceremony.

4.              Unity Candles Outside-Most wedding guests can’t see the flame of a Unity Candle outside during the day and it frequently won’t light or stay lit. The sand ceremony is a good alternative for outside weddings.

5.               Starting Late- Officiants frequently perform more than one wedding on busy weekends in the summer and may need to leave to get to the next wedding on time. With busy schedules to keep, and guests flying in and out of town, the bride being late is no longer fashionable.

6.               Too Many or Inexperienced Photographers- They get in the way and hold up processionals and recessionals and block people’s view. The best photographers are hardly noticed.

7.               Poor Readers-Asking friends or family to read who don’t read well is embarrassing for them and distracting to the listeners.

8.     Toddler Flower Girls and Ring Bearers-Using flower girls and ring bearers who are too young to know what’s going on is disruptive. They are frequently terrified. A scared and crying small child in a wedding procession is sad. One way to solve this is have an older child lead them or an adult lead or carry them. It is the bride who is the focus of the ceremony.

9.      Avoiding Any Spiritual Elements in the  ceremony weakens the power of the vows and symbols which tie into the archetypal level of the psyche.

10.      Too Many Symbolic Traditions- The Unity  
candle, the sand ceremony, the rose and the vase, the cord and the veil, the Navajo wedding vase, the Arras coins, and handfasting ribbons are beautiful, but using multiple traditions is redundant and reduces the impact of each. In addition to the exchange of the rings, usually one or two of these other traditions  symbolizing unity is enough.