No Unity Candle??

I didn't do any unity rituals. We did vows and exchanged rings and we were done!

We are doing the wine box and are going to wine tastings to find the perfect wine for it, with added bonus of a fun date weekend. I am actually making our box myself and am pretty excited about it.

We're doing a family unity sand or painting ceremony. I have 2 kids from my previous marriage and he has 2 daughters from his previous marriage. Plus the twins we had 2 years ago. So letting them all participate in the ceremony will be good

We did the unity cross ceremony. I've seen many version of added unity ceremonies as part of the wedding and really liked the extra touch. Plus now we have it displayed in our home as a reminder of our wedding.

I'm not doing any sort of unity thing. I want my ceremony to be short and sweet.

We aren't but I wanted to do the three cords where bride, groom and God are the only people in the marriage. Everyone else is out and the cords are not easily broken. It was in the movie not easily broken.

I didn't do any if that 26 years ago with my first wedding and will not be doing it this time (second wedding for both of us). Our ceremony will be short so we can spend more time with family and friends at the reception.

You definitely don't have to do any of those things. Not a new concept though. My cousins did the unity candle at their catholic ceremony in 1989.

I'm not doing any of these. FH said um.....isn't that what vows and rings are for?? Haha I just love him and agree!

I'm not doing any of those and frankly I can't remember a wedding I've been to that had any of these elements.

I don't honestly understand couples who want the shortest ceremony possible...

Our vows are our unity thing

We didn't do any such thing, just vows. Our pastor was cool with us not doing a candle because he once saw a bride nearly catch her face on fire when her veil brushed the candle flame

Our Church doesn't even allow the unity candle thing because they say it's a fire hazard. Personally, I think all the unity candles/boxes/sand whatever are completely unnecessary.

@Celia Milton. I see your point, but the main reason I want to keep mine relatively short (as compared to my first wedding Eucharist n all) is - 1) as Mary wrote, I want to really enjoy this reception, that means visiting with family that I don't get to see very often; and 2) we are having the ceremony/reception in an old mansion. We will have seats for the elders, but unfortunately most of my guests will be standing for the ceremony...

Not sure what we're going to do. I wanted to do a unity tree but FH doesn't want to because we are moving in a few years and it'll be "too big to move". Officiant recommended the sand ceremony since we're getting married outside but I'm on the fence about it. I like that we can use it to "unite" our family by including his two sons but I'm just not a huge fan of it. Wish it was as easy as someone telling me what to do. Lol

We aren't doing anything. When my mom asked me if I wanted to, I told her it was probably just going to be another thing that I had to pack and move!

When my best friends mom got remarried, she had the three daughters and he had two sons, so they did the sand thing where they all had a different color. They have the vase of sand up on their mantle 10+ years later. It was kinda cute.

@Hannah. I absolutely would do SOMETHING if I had small children to bring into the fold. My 28 year old son would not want to do that, though.

@JSARGE. Thanks for letting us know your thoughts. I AM religious, and extremely spiritual. My shortish ceremony (20 minutes or so) is plenty long to express our love and listen to the priest's thoughts and blessings. And you're wrong. The sooner I finish my ceremony, the sooner EVERYTHING else begins. I haven't seen some of my family members (with whom I was always very close) in almost a decade. It really is primarily family and only the closest of friends. they know us, as a couple, pretty well.

If it's not meaningful to you and you don't like it, skip it. We're doing a hand-tying, but that's only because it's generally part of a Byzantine/Orthodox ceremony and I want to work in some Ukrainian traditions. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be doing anything.