Integrating Two Religions Into One Wedding Ceremony
If you’re planning an interfaith wedding ceremony, you’ll likely want to incorporate elements of both of your religions into your wedding ceremony. This is most often accomplished, and very beautifully, by inviting religious officiants from both of your faiths to officiate at your ceremony, or by selecting an interfaith wedding minister to help you create your personalized ceremony including all of the meaningful sentiments and rituals you desire.
If you’ll invite two different religious officiants to perform your wedding, you’ll make an appointment with each as far prior to your wedding as possible, to discuss the requirements of performing a wedding ceremony at your choice of wedding venue, such as at outdoor wedding gardens, and then delve into the details that will be included in your personalized wedding ceremony. An early meeting is also advised with a single interfaith officiant so that he or she too can assess your wedding venue and wedding wishes before working with you on your wedding ceremony elements.
Experienced wedding officiants have worked dual faith weddings in the past, so you’re very likely to find that they already have sample ceremonies for you to review, wedding readings to ponder, and ceremony details to inspire you. Some religious officiants can recommend their longtime colleagues of other religions and can help you choose your ideal officiant. Since interfaith weddings are so common, you’ll likely be surprised at how easy it is to find the perfect religious officiant team or minister, and how streamlined it can be to build your personalized wedding ceremony.
Even with sample readings and sample ceremony scripts to review, you may still wish to personalize your own wedding ceremony, which would entail discussing your deepest faith beliefs, and perhaps share your families’ longheld religious traditions, so that they may be woven into your wedding ceremony plans. And many interfaith wedding couples find themselves requesting that some wording and rituals be left out of their ceremonies, since they do not reflect their wishes for their ceremony. So don’t be afraid to ask for changes to any scripts presented to you. Just like some brides construct a custom wedding gown from different gowns, so too can a wedding ceremony be constructed from different elements of different faiths.
You’ll work with your interfaith minister or religious officiants to create your wedding ceremony from start to finish, including the greeting you’d like the officiant to begin with, prayers to include, readings, music, cultural wedding ceremony elements, and more, so that your wedding ceremony – the centerpiece of your dream wedding day – reflects the two of you and your deepest-held beliefs, values and promises to one another. This way, you’re bringing in the beauty of each of your individual religions or spiritual beliefs, becoming the authors of a wedding ceremony that’s uniquely you.
In fact, some wedding couples choose wedding gardens and unique wedding locations because they are then free from what can sometimes be strict rules imposed by a house of worship, or by a religious leader whose style they do not prefer. Choosing a wedding venue outside of a house of worship grants you the ability to plan your wedding your way, with the officiant of your choosing, the words, songs and rituals of your preference, and a more meaningful ceremony planned by all of you as a harmonious team.
Be sure to include in your wedding programs an outline and descriptions of your personalized wedding ceremony, so that your guests can follow along and learn the name of that lovely song played during your processional, know exactly the name of the poem you’ve included in your readings. Your personalized wedding ceremony can inspire your guests, and fill your day with meaningful words you’ll never forget.
Lars Johnson, General Manager, Pleasantdale Chateau
