Creative Ceremony Ideas

If you would like to add special touches to your wedding ceremony, try one or two of the below listed ideas:
1. The mother and father walk the bride down the aisle.  
2. The bride walks down the aisle solo, or perhaps even dad can meet the bride midway down the aisle.  
3. Have the groom escort his mother to her seat.  
4. Allow a family member or friend to do a special reading or solo.  
5. Have a rose ceremony - The bride and groom exchange two red roses symbolizing the giving and receiving of their love for each other throughout their marriage.  
6. Hand out roses to the mothers during the rose ceremony.  
7. Have a family member deliver the final blessing.  
8. Include a prayer of thanks to the families.
9. Have a single flower given out to each female guest as they are seated for the ceremony.  
10. Jumping of the Broom  
11. For the big kiss, have the wedding party hold up score cards to rate the kiss.
12. Do a tasting ceremony - The bride and groom will taste four different flavors, something sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. These different flavors will represent the sweet, salty, bitter and sour times the couple will go through during their marriage. Guests usually get a kick out of the funny faces made by the couple as they taste the different elements.  
13. Include some of your engagement photos in your wedding program. Happy Planning!!!

Gap Between Ceremony and Reception

I recently ran into a planning situation where a Bride wanted to have her ceremony at 3pm but not start her cocktail hour at the reception site until 6pm. Knowing that the ceremony was going to last no more than an hour, I was left to determine what the guests would do for an hour and a half. Well to be absolutely honest, it is normal to have this break since many churches do not allow the Bride to have a Ceremony later than 4pm. The key is to make sure that your guests are aware of this break. The time to advise your guests of this would not be the day of the wedding, but ahead of time on your invitations. If you have out of town guests attending the wedding, you might consider arranging some sort of entertainment for those guests in function space at the selected reception venue. A great idea would be to have caricature artists, henna tattoo artist, fortune tellers, dancers, or any other form of exciting entertainment. If the break will last for two hours or more, I would suggest providing your guests with an "out of towner" kit prior to their arrival that gives them information about a variety of activities they can do in the area.