Lutheran Ceremony Questions

Most requirements for religious music tends to be for in the sanctuary, as that is a reverent place, in my experience at least. The Methodist church I was looking at would also include classical music in the options I could use if the religious was not what I wanted.

My dad's a Lutheran pastor. He has the same rules for his ceremonies no matter where they happen, b/c the marriage ceremony is a sacrament and it should all be based around Jesus. (Not trying to preach, that's just what he would say.)

There are some classical pieces that a lot of Lutheran churches won't allow b/c of the context in which they were written, or the political/religious views of the composers. Like, the bridal march, for one. But that probably depends on the church and the pastor.

One thing my dad has done is helped couples rewrite just a few lines from a song or reading to reflect the religious tone of the service - that could give you more flexibility to use things you want outside the normal "church stuff". I don't know if all pastors would be open to that or if it's just my dad but you could ask.

There are a lot of pretty hymns. I think there was a thread of them a while back. I'll go search.

Hmmm, my sister is a Lutheran pastor, and she's marrying my FH and me. She doesn't care what kind of music we use. I really think it's your pastor's preference, but it's certainly not a "Lutheran" thing. See if he's willing to bend at all.

Oh poo, idk. Our Pastor JUST LEFT and i loved him.... so we don't have a set pastor yet. now im worried. I wanted my wedding to be more relaxed, like i have my cousin coming in to play guitar, acoustic pretty guitar not rock, lol. No offense to anyone, but i dont want a SERVICE ya know? Guess i'll have to find out

I totally agree with you Sabrina! I found some really nice songs a while ago that I wanted to have included in the ceremony and hadn't really even thought about it. Last night I was beginning to look for our readings and found a super nice poem, so I checked the booklet thingy he gave me a while ago and found the thing about the music. Nothing against the bible in any way, just most of the marriage readings seem to be pretty dated (obviously!) and I want the readings at our wedding to reflect our relationship, not the way relationships were back thousands of years ago.

I'm getting married in a southern Baptist church, and their guidelines are pretty strict too. We have to get all our music approved beforehand including the lyrics. There are two songs that we want the pianist to play that are not considered church music. The wedding coordinator of the church said the pianist could play them, which was very surprising to me. The two songs are God Gave Me You by Blake Shelton and Wedding Day by the Bee Gees.

See if you can provide the lyrics to the songs you're wanting to use.

Many independent officiants are perfectly comfortable and experienced in doing ceremonies with a religious tone; this would give you the opportunity to do what you want to do and still have the traditional parts you might want to include. In my own work, I rarely do religious ceremonies, (though I will, and ironically, my first one was, lol) but even in my UCC church, our organist rarely places secular music. When I first got to the church, he has misgivings about playing, "You'll never walk alone" from Carousel.....

My hunch is that this varies from minister to minister...

Lisa Marie, what synod is your church/pastor? I still think every community is going to have some variation on these things but synod makes a huge difference in their social views and the bible version they use, which can impact how current the readings feel. Example - if Allison's sister is a Lutheran pastor, I'd guess her church is either independent or ELCA, which is WAAAAAAAAAAY less conservative than an LCMS church. It's like going from a Methodist church to a Roman Catholic one. Huge difference.

This is going to come out more snotty than I mean it so I apologize in advance, but if you don't want a "service", why are you getting married by a pastor? Marriage is a sacrament when it takes place in the church - and the protestant "church" is not defined by its walls but by the people gathered together. So of course it's a service. I think you have to have that expectation in your mind if you're getting married by a pastor.

Kris S. - I didn't say I didn't want a "service." I still want to include all of the religious aspects, I just don't necessarily want to walk down the aisle to a "religious" song. It's important to me that my pastor marry us as I do see marriage as a sacrament. My only real issue with the readings is that the bible verses I have found so far are very dated and I want something representative of our relationship. What I'd like to do ideally is have one bible verse and one poem. I'm going to email my pastor today and find out exactly what the limitations are. Just so we're clear, I'm not looking to have some crazy anti-religious song in my ceremony - just more contemporary love songs.

The thing is, the music and readings are part of the service. Like I suggested before you could see if the pastor would let you rewrite anything that isn't acceptable but in our church? A poem would not fly, even if it was a poem about Jesus. B/c the readings are part of the service which is centered around a sacrament and the whole point of the service is to glorify God. (Again not trying to be preachy - but that's what my dad would say.)

Lisa, that's the best thing to do: ask your minister. Talk w/ them & work out a solution. If a Bible reading is required, I'd recommend 1Cor. 13 [not necessarily all of it, but the discription of love at least]. Then there's always the "God is love" passage from 1John, too. They are both Biblical & timeless.

I think another really pretty reading is from Ruth, actually spoken between Ruth and Naomi. "Wherever you go I will follow, your people will be my people..." I think it's a really lovely promise.

We've talked about naming our future daughter Naomi (if we have one), just based on that story. It's such a great story about family and devotion.