You are getting married...

but you don’t have a cultural or religious tradition that you want to draw on...

but you grew up in a community you don’t identify with anymore...

but your community doesn’t have a ceremony that’s appropriate for you...

but you just want a really unique ceremony tailored to you...

but you want to create an interfaith, interreligious, or intercultural ceremony...

but you don’t want your ceremony to be just a potpourri of customs...

but you want to be inclusive and sensitive about cultural appropriation...

Bill Hulseman is a ritual designer and wedding officiant based in Seattle, Washington. He brings his academic background in the comparative study of religion and his professional background as a teacher, campus minister, and school leader with him to design ceremonies that reflect a couple's experiences, identities, and values and to provide couples a process that is meaningful for them.

Many of the practices that we associate with American weddings originated in very different places and times and carry the (often misogynistic, heteronormative, racist, and classist) values of their origins. To ensure that every aspect of your ceremony aligns with your values, Bill provides context for the origins, development, and various interpretations of each ceremony's components and can collaborate with you to adapt or reframe beloved customs.

Bill works with couples through a series of one-hour meetings, about a month apart in the time leading up to your ceremony, and ongoing reflection and discernment through Google Drive. Bill's ceremonies typically range from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the experience the couple wants to design, and he engages your family and friends not as an audience but as active participants, as witnesses to your union, and as a unique community group together by love for you.

Services Offered

Bill designs rituals to mark a variety of moments or life transitions, including funerals, naming ceremonies, home blessings, and other community rituals and gatherings. In terms of marriage-related services, he does weddings, vow renewals, civil unions, commitment ceremonies, elopments, second weddings. Packages include:

• Original ceremony design: original design or adaptation of every aspect of your ceremony
• Tailored ceremony design: tailoring one of his standard ceremony structures to reflect your experiences, identities, and values
• Vows workshop: if you need support or coachig in writing and delivering your vows, Bill provides a reflection and dialogue-based workshop to help you say what you mean and mean what you say
• Officiant coaching: if you've invited an officiant who needs some support for either designing or leading the ceremony, Bill can coach them through the process