“We are all elemental stardust that differentiate
and are yet made whole again by the unifying fate of love.”
Sentimental, sassy, pragmatic, traditional, short or long, every ceremony has a tone, and the tone chosen reflects the values of the couple. It may or may not surprise you, but the alleged binary between “off-beat” and “tradition” does not always coincide with “contemporary” and “old-fashioned.”
FUN ARTICLES ON WEDDINGS (LATE 19TH-EARLY 20TH CENTURIES)
To Keep Perspective: New York Times article on a minister who performed lots and lots of ceremonies in the early part of the twentieth century.
New Jersey Ceremony: Proposed by the Court.
Old Marriage Sermons: Segments for marriage sermons in the New York Times written in our great-great grandparents’ generation with very timeless messages.
Nothing new about off-beat weddings: New York Times article about an unusual ceremony in which a husband and wife officiated.
Female Officiator: Wife of Judge who performed legal ceremony presides over religious ceremony.
When small, classy weddings were the norm: Description of Woodrow Wilson’s wedding.
When “obey” went away: Did you know that the word “obey” only appeared in marriage services *after* the thirteenth century? Technically the Book of Common Prayer–which is the template for most Christian rituals–dropped it far before clergy stopped using it. On a flip side, many clergy and JOPs did not not include “obey” even before it officially disappeared from prayer books. It seems that the liberal northeast and northwest more often excluded it.
1920 Waldorf wedding in blue jeans: “to combat showy tendencies” of ceremonies.
JOP demands his fee and here is another: If you can stomach the outdated ethnic references, you will learn insights for the officiant’s perspective. $5 in 1896 = $129 today.…and couple went to him (v. me traveling to your site). Another article in the New York Observer reports ministers (v. JOPs) stating that ten dollars was the average fee in 1903, which translates to $239.45 in 2010 dollars.
Marriage Ceremony Information
Wedding Ceremony Program Outline
To read my standard ceremonies, follow this link and click on “preview” below the book The “preview” feature allows you to read and select a favorite.
Put together by Judie L. Guild
