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Synopsis
A WEDDING WITH SPIRIT has been written for the bride and groom who are searching for something more for their wedding--not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. Ritual and liturgy experts Gertrud Mueller Nelson and Christopher Witt have helped hundreds of couples plan their ceremonies and in these pages they have distilled their years of experience into some basic principles. Instead of trying to orchestrate "the happiest day of your life" and suffering through catering nightmares, Nelson and Witt help the couple see the wedding as a moment in the larger context of their love. To create such a wedding, A WEDDING WITH SPIRIT offers advice in general principles such as location, participants, symbols, prayers, format, readings, blessings, and music. Sections include:
* A look at the history and meaning behind familiar wedding traditions* A walk through the ceremony (including the rites of gathering, the readings, and the exchanging of vows and rings) and the reception
* Practical advice for the invitations, the rehearsal, and the programs
* Pre-marriage guidance (including pertinent meditations and prayers) to enable the bride and groom to begin their union with a firm footing
*Three model weddings incorporating all the principles of A WEDDING WITH SPIRIT A WEDDING WITH SPIRIT ensures that one's wedding day will be about the sacredness of a committed love between two people, about love's ability to create and nurture life, and about the faithfulness and hope that such a love gives witness to.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Gertrud Mueller Nelson is known internationally as an illustrator, author, and speaker. Her books include A Wedding with Spirit, To Dance with God, and Here All Dwell Free. She lives in San Diego.
Christopher Witt is a speech consultant and coach with almost three decades of professional speaking experience. As president of San Diego-based Witt Communications, he has shown CEOs how to gain board approval and companywide support for their initiatives, helped teams of technical experts win multimillion-dollar contracts, and empowered newly promoted managers. He holds a doctorate from Catholic University of America.From the Back Cover
"A Wedding with Spirit has been written for the bride and groom who are searching for something more for their wedding. Not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. Ritual and liturgy experts Nelson and Witt have helped hundreds of couples plan their ceremonies, and in these pages they have distilled their years of experience into some basic principles that will help every couple begin their lives together with more than just catering nightmares. "A Wedding with Spirit's five chapters discuss the general principles for creating a wedding with spirit, with guidance on choosing the right place, people, symbols, prayers, format, readings, and music. Sections include:
A look at the meaning and history behind the familiar wedding traditions.A step-by-step walk through the ceremony itself--the gathering rite, readings, the wedding ritual, and the reception.Practical advice for the rehearsal, instructions for the readers, and models for the printed program.A collection of meditations--preparing for marriage, dealing with doubts, exploring dimensions of marriage in the Bible, and prayer--designed for the ceremony and for the bride and groom to use themselves as they prepare for their wedding. Three model weddings incorporating all the principles of "A Wedding with Spirit.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A Wedding with Spirit
A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
By Gertrud Mueller Nelson, Christopher WittPotter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Copyright © 2006 Gertrud Mueller Nelson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-385-51789-8All rights reserved.
1
Marriage Is a Threshold
For Now and Always
We are happy you have chosen this book. Unlike other wedding books, this one is for both of you, not just for the bride. As a society we are just beginning to appreciate and honor the equality of man and woman in marriage. It is time that weddings reflect this equality, not only by eliminating or altering those parts of the ceremony that slight a woman's dignity but also by encouraging the man's participation in planning and in being fully part of the celebration itself.
We also wrote this book for people who are searching for something more for their wedding. Not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. We approach a wedding less as a production to be orchestrated according to a complex and often outdated etiquette and more as a public celebration of a personal commitment, an event that is social and intimate, holy and joyful. The most successful weddings, to our way of thinking, are marked by hospitality, graciousness, and inclusivity. Wedding celebrations "work" when everyone present feels brought together--even bound together--in an active, holy, and deeply satisfying undertaking.
This book builds on these basic assumptions:
* A wedding is for a day, a marriage lasts a lifetime.
* A wedding is a spiritual event, a sacred threshold to a new life together.
* A wedding is a ritual celebrated by a community.
A Lifelong Marriage
Your wedding is important and will certainly give you a lifetime of memories. Planning it deserves your full attention. But instead of trying to orchestrate "the happiest day of your life," see your wedding as a moment in the larger context of your love. Make it reflect your love for each other, your shared dreams and hopes.
Planning a wedding is a major undertaking that requires months of planning, consulting, negotiating, shopping, and socializing. In some parts of the country it is necessary to reserve the church, the reception hall, the caterer, musicians, and photographers a year or more in advance. Bridal magazines and wedding planners publish checklists that take into account every detail you need to address over the coming months. We suggest that you use them in conjunction with this book, but we recognize at the same time how daunting they can make the whole wedding seem. The details that rightly demand attention can also overwhelm you and make you lose touch with each other and with the very reason for your efforts. The details can also draw your attention away from the greater task, the hard and joyful work of making a deep and loving marriage.
We wrote this book convinced that it is possible to plan and celebrate a wedding in a way that both reflects and enriches your love. We address the quality of your preparations and the ceremony itself. We offer for your consideration the spirit, attitudes, concerns, and values you bring to bear in the planning. We are, frankly, less concerned that you finesse the "perfect wedding" (something unexpected always happens) than that you marry with grace and graciousness. For your wedding day is meant to send you on your way together into a new life--into a loving, life-enhancing marriage.
Remind yourselves, when feeling overwhelmed, that a wedding is for a day, marriage for a lifetime.
A Spiritual Event
Marriage is caught up in the mystery of God. All major faith traditions consider marriage holy. They recognize something sacred about the committed love between two people, about love's ability to create and nurture life, about the faithfulness and hope that such a love gives witness to. For this reason, all major religions mark the beginning of marriage with rich communal rituals.
For Christians marriage is indeed holy.
The Orthodox and Catholic churches teach that it is one of the seven sacraments, a sign of God's presence in the world and a means of grace.
IN THE JEWISH TRADITION, a wedding is much more than the joining of two people or even two families. It is a celebration for the entire community and for God. The central symbol of the wedding ceremony, the canopy, represents the ideal home, which the couple enters at the beginning of the wedding ceremony, escorted by their parents. Traditionally, close friends or family members hold the canopy's poles, to symbolize the support that others pledge to the couple throughout their lives together. The canopy, a home without walls, calls to mind the presence of the Shechinah, the protecting presence of God.
IN BURMA, Buddhists begin their wedding day by hosting a special meal in the bride's house for the village monks. During their wedding ceremony at the local shrine their hands are held together and immersed in a bowl of water to make "their union as indivisible as water."
HINDU WEDDING CEREMONIES differ from region to region and for each different caste in India, but there are certain essential elements common to them all. The wedding date is fixed only after careful astrological calculations have been made. The bridegroom is conducted to the home of his future parents-in-law, who receive him as an honored guest. After the parents and the couple make offerings to the fire, the groom takes his bride by the hand and leads her around this sacrificial fire. They take seven steps together to solemnize their irrevocable unity. Then both are conducted to their new home, which the bride enters without touching the threshold.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer says: "The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy, for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity, and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord."
The minister's instruction at the beginning of the Lutheran marriage ceremony states: "The Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come."
A Quaker man and woman marry at a public gathering, where they declare their commitment to each other without the services of a minister. They believe that God alone makes a couple husband and wife.
Although each church has its own ritual for celebrating and blessing the marriage of its members, they are amazingly similar.
Perhaps you aren't presently involved with a particular church. It could be that you drifted away from the religious community of your childhood and got caught up in other issues and concerns. Although you haven't thought about religion, you may still feel a connection with something you vaguely feel as spirituality. Maybe you can't articulate what you believe about God or faith or religion. Perhaps you don't even understand why, when you think about your wedding, you are naturally drawn to a spiritual wedding, whether in a church or outside a church. That's fine. This book isn't about converting or convincing you to join a religion. Rather, it asks you to be open to mystery, to the possibility that God is gracious and desires your mutual happiness and well-being. We hope this book will help you appreciate the rituals of whatever church you feel connected to and experience the presence and blessings of God in and through your wedding ceremony. And if, for whatever reason, you decide not to be married in a church, we hope this book will help you create a ceremony grounded in the sacred and in your own spiritual sensibilities.
A Sacred Ritual
Life is filled with ritual. Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, turkey, and all the trimmings is a ritual. A birthday party with a cake and candles, with singing, and a wish is a ritual. Certainly a wedding with its special attire, with processions, music, vows, and the exchange of rings is a ritual.
Ritual is what brings people together in community. It unites us in a physical place and time and on a deeper level binds us together in a common undertaking. Ritual uses traditional elements and actions to create a safe passage for the central participants, that they might pass from one state of being to a new one.
Throughout this book we discuss a variety of customs, actions, and gestures you can employ to gather your families and guests into a community. Most of these customs are drawn from Christian traditions. We help you reclaim traditions of substance, reframe customs that have lost their value, and discard trivial or demeaning practices. We suggest ways you can involve your guests in celebrating with you, in witnessing your commitment, and in surrounding you with their blessings and love.
The Wedding Industry
To create the wedding both of you hope for, you may enlist the services of a small army of professionals--caterers, florists, photographers, seamstresses, printers, bakers, janitors, deejays, and musicians. Many professionals are committed to providing a necessary and helpful service, although there are some who profit by catering to an engaged couple's insecurities. They create false needs and pander to a couple's desire to do "the right thing." Throughout this book we call them "the wedding industry," and we suggest ways you can reduce your reliance on them.
Distrust anyone who offers you a product or service, saying, "You deserve the best" or "This is your special day" or "It happens only once in a lifetime" or "A wedding would be incomplete without this." They are making a thinly disguised sales pitch. Unless you approach such professionals with common sense and with your own values clearly in mind, you can easily exhaust your savings and forgo the down payment on a fair-sized house.
You do deserve the best--which has little to do with what money can buy. You deserve the fondest support, the dearest expressions of love that family and friends can provide. You deserve the blessings of God. It is your special day--a special day for you both--but it is also a special day in the lives of everyone who loves you. And it can be perfect--not flawless, but perfectly wonderful, right, true, joyful--as perfect as our less-than-perfect world allows. And its perfection is nothing you pay for but exists because of who you are as a couple and because of the Spirit you invite to the wedding.
The Book's Format
The next five chapters discuss the general principles of a wedding. "Crossing the Threshold" introduces the overriding metaphor of this book, while the following chapters reflect on the place, people, symbols, and music of a wedding.
The second section, "The Ceremony and the Reception," moves step by step through the ceremony itself. It focuses on the gathering rite (welcoming your guests, the procession, and the opening prayer), the readings and instruction, the wedding ritual itself (the vows, rings, and blessing). The section concludes with the reception, since it is a social recapitulation of the religious ceremony.
"Matters of Hospitality" deals with the practicalities of invitations, the rehearsal, instructions you can give to your readers, and models for a printed program.
"Making a Marriage" is a collection of meditations--preparing for marriage, dealing with doubts and jitters, exploring dimensions of marriage in the Bible, and praying.
Finally, "Making the Day: Examples" describes three different weddings.
May your wedding--this crossing of the threshold--be a step into the sacred. May the hand of the holy one who leads you bless and protect you all the days of your life.
Crossing the Threshold
Once upon a time, and not so long ago at that, it was customary for a man to carry his bride over the threshold into his house. The custom, an outward sign of a couple's entry into marriage, is preserved today more in memory than in observance.
Some trace the practice to ancient Rome, where a day of wedding festivities ended at night with a procession. With torches blazing and to the accompaniment of music and singing, the groom's friends escorted the bride to her husband's house, where the entry had been festooned with garlands of flowers in preparation for her arrival. There the married men--those still sober enough to do so--lifted the bride and carried her over the threshold of the groom's doorway into his house.
This Roman custom may, in turn, be a relic of a still more ancient, more primitive practice, when a man quite literally "took a bride." Those were times when a man may have captured a woman, sometimes from a neighboring tribe, and dragged her forcibly into his house. Or the Roman custom may have reflected some early religious beliefs. Many ancient peoples believed that each place had its own attendant spirit. Spirits resided in mountains and lakes, in fields and forests. They lived in the rocks and in crops. They had their place in barns and sheds and households, where they lurked in the rafters or stood guard at the doorsill. Anyone who ignored the spirits of a place ran the risk of offending them and incurring their wrath. The spirits that haunted the threshold were especially powerful, and people believed that stumbling or treading on them through ignorance or preoccupation brought bad luck. Therefore, to make sure the bride didn't trip up and begin her marriage on a wrong footing, she was carried over the threshold in safety.
Today few of us accept the notion that a man takes possession of his wife or, for that matter, that she needs his protection against the impish spirits that lie in wait around doorways. Through gradual disuse more than by conscious consensus, we have allowed the custom to die out slowly. It is a rare groom who carries his bride over the threshold on their wedding night. And yet, even as we reject the custom's superstitious and sexist implications, we can still discover in it a deeper kernel of value. Old practices often express a symbolic truth.
A Wedding Is a Threshold
When you marry, you make a transition. You step over a threshold, crossing from one way of life to another, from being single to being married. You walk across the threshold, not one of you carrying the other, but hand in hand, as equals and as two persons in mutual support. You enter a whole new way of relating to each other and assume an entirely new position in the society around you.
At the threshold of your wedding you step away from what is familiar and predictable and enter a place you have never been before. This transition is like and unlike other thresholds you have already crossed--being born, entering adolescence, graduating, starting a new job--and ones you may yet encounter--giving birth, raising a family, growing old, retiring, dying--in that you have no way of knowing beforehand where you will end up or what you will experience on the other side. In a sense, your wedding is a passage that takes you from the comfortably familiar into a place of mystery. In crossing, you almost hover and are not yet here or there. You step into a time that will leave you feeling disoriented and out of control. You will take on new roles and identities. You will no longer be "your own person," free to do as you please. No longer simply your parents' child, you will be, after a brief ceremony, husband and wife. For as often as you have seen marriage played out by others, or imagined yourselves as married, you don't actually know what married life will be like for you. Even if you have been married before, you still don't know what this marriage will hold for you.
Marriage Is a Threshold
For Now and Always
We are happy you have chosen this book. Unlike other wedding books, this one is for both of you, not just for the bride. As a society we are just beginning to appreciate and honor the equality of man and woman in marriage. It is time that weddings reflect this equality, not only by eliminating or altering those parts of the ceremony that slight a woman's dignity but also by encouraging the man's participation in planning and in being fully part of the celebration itself.
We also wrote this book for people who are searching for something more for their wedding. Not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. We approach a wedding less as a production to be orchestrated according to a complex and often outdated etiquette and more as a public celebration of a personal commitment, an event that is social and intimate, holy and joyful. The most successful weddings, to our way of thinking, are marked by hospitality, graciousness, and inclusivity. Wedding celebrations "work" when everyone present feels brought together--even bound together--in an active, holy, and deeply satisfying undertaking.
This book builds on these basic assumptions:
* A wedding is for a day, a marriage lasts a lifetime.
* A wedding is a spiritual event, a sacred threshold to a new life together.
* A wedding is a ritual celebrated by a community.
A Lifelong Marriage
Your wedding is important and will certainly give you a lifetime of memories. Planning it deserves your full attention. But instead of trying to orchestrate "the happiest day of your life," see your wedding as a moment in the larger context of your love. Make it reflect your love for each other, your shared dreams and hopes.
Planning a wedding is a major undertaking that requires months of planning, consulting, negotiating, shopping, and socializing. In some parts of the country it is necessary to reserve the church, the reception hall, the caterer, musicians, and photographers a year or more in advance. Bridal magazines and wedding planners publish checklists that take into account every detail you need to address over the coming months. We suggest that you use them in conjunction with this book, but we recognize at the same time how daunting they can make the whole wedding seem. The details that rightly demand attention can also overwhelm you and make you lose touch with each other and with the very reason for your efforts. The details can also draw your attention away from the greater task, the hard and joyful work of making a deep and loving marriage.
We wrote this book convinced that it is possible to plan and celebrate a wedding in a way that both reflects and enriches your love. We address the quality of your preparations and the ceremony itself. We offer for your consideration the spirit, attitudes, concerns, and values you bring to bear in the planning. We are, frankly, less concerned that you finesse the "perfect wedding" (something unexpected always happens) than that you marry with grace and graciousness. For your wedding day is meant to send you on your way together into a new life--into a loving, life-enhancing marriage.
Remind yourselves, when feeling overwhelmed, that a wedding is for a day, marriage for a lifetime.
A Spiritual Event
Marriage is caught up in the mystery of God. All major faith traditions consider marriage holy. They recognize something sacred about the committed love between two people, about love's ability to create and nurture life, about the faithfulness and hope that such a love gives witness to. For this reason, all major religions mark the beginning of marriage with rich communal rituals.
For Christians marriage is indeed holy.
The Orthodox and Catholic churches teach that it is one of the seven sacraments, a sign of God's presence in the world and a means of grace.
IN THE JEWISH TRADITION, a wedding is much more than the joining of two people or even two families. It is a celebration for the entire community and for God. The central symbol of the wedding ceremony, the canopy, represents the ideal home, which the couple enters at the beginning of the wedding ceremony, escorted by their parents. Traditionally, close friends or family members hold the canopy's poles, to symbolize the support that others pledge to the couple throughout their lives together. The canopy, a home without walls, calls to mind the presence of the Shechinah, the protecting presence of God.
IN BURMA, Buddhists begin their wedding day by hosting a special meal in the bride's house for the village monks. During their wedding ceremony at the local shrine their hands are held together and immersed in a bowl of water to make "their union as indivisible as water."
HINDU WEDDING CEREMONIES differ from region to region and for each different caste in India, but there are certain essential elements common to them all. The wedding date is fixed only after careful astrological calculations have been made. The bridegroom is conducted to the home of his future parents-in-law, who receive him as an honored guest. After the parents and the couple make offerings to the fire, the groom takes his bride by the hand and leads her around this sacrificial fire. They take seven steps together to solemnize their irrevocable unity. Then both are conducted to their new home, which the bride enters without touching the threshold.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer says: "The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy, for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity, and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord."
The minister's instruction at the beginning of the Lutheran marriage ceremony states: "The Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come."
A Quaker man and woman marry at a public gathering, where they declare their commitment to each other without the services of a minister. They believe that God alone makes a couple husband and wife.
Although each church has its own ritual for celebrating and blessing the marriage of its members, they are amazingly similar.
Perhaps you aren't presently involved with a particular church. It could be that you drifted away from the religious community of your childhood and got caught up in other issues and concerns. Although you haven't thought about religion, you may still feel a connection with something you vaguely feel as spirituality. Maybe you can't articulate what you believe about God or faith or religion. Perhaps you don't even understand why, when you think about your wedding, you are naturally drawn to a spiritual wedding, whether in a church or outside a church. That's fine. This book isn't about converting or convincing you to join a religion. Rather, it asks you to be open to mystery, to the possibility that God is gracious and desires your mutual happiness and well-being. We hope this book will help you appreciate the rituals of whatever church you feel connected to and experience the presence and blessings of God in and through your wedding ceremony. And if, for whatever reason, you decide not to be married in a church, we hope this book will help you create a ceremony grounded in the sacred and in your own spiritual sensibilities.
A Sacred Ritual
Life is filled with ritual. Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, turkey, and all the trimmings is a ritual. A birthday party with a cake and candles, with singing, and a wish is a ritual. Certainly a wedding with its special attire, with processions, music, vows, and the exchange of rings is a ritual.
Ritual is what brings people together in community. It unites us in a physical place and time and on a deeper level binds us together in a common undertaking. Ritual uses traditional elements and actions to create a safe passage for the central participants, that they might pass from one state of being to a new one.
Throughout this book we discuss a variety of customs, actions, and gestures you can employ to gather your families and guests into a community. Most of these customs are drawn from Christian traditions. We help you reclaim traditions of substance, reframe customs that have lost their value, and discard trivial or demeaning practices. We suggest ways you can involve your guests in celebrating with you, in witnessing your commitment, and in surrounding you with their blessings and love.
The Wedding Industry
To create the wedding both of you hope for, you may enlist the services of a small army of professionals--caterers, florists, photographers, seamstresses, printers, bakers, janitors, deejays, and musicians. Many professionals are committed to providing a necessary and helpful service, although there are some who profit by catering to an engaged couple's insecurities. They create false needs and pander to a couple's desire to do "the right thing." Throughout this book we call them "the wedding industry," and we suggest ways you can reduce your reliance on them.
Distrust anyone who offers you a product or service, saying, "You deserve the best" or "This is your special day" or "It happens only once in a lifetime" or "A wedding would be incomplete without this." They are making a thinly disguised sales pitch. Unless you approach such professionals with common sense and with your own values clearly in mind, you can easily exhaust your savings and forgo the down payment on a fair-sized house.
You do deserve the best--which has little to do with what money can buy. You deserve the fondest support, the dearest expressions of love that family and friends can provide. You deserve the blessings of God. It is your special day--a special day for you both--but it is also a special day in the lives of everyone who loves you. And it can be perfect--not flawless, but perfectly wonderful, right, true, joyful--as perfect as our less-than-perfect world allows. And its perfection is nothing you pay for but exists because of who you are as a couple and because of the Spirit you invite to the wedding.
The Book's Format
The next five chapters discuss the general principles of a wedding. "Crossing the Threshold" introduces the overriding metaphor of this book, while the following chapters reflect on the place, people, symbols, and music of a wedding.
The second section, "The Ceremony and the Reception," moves step by step through the ceremony itself. It focuses on the gathering rite (welcoming your guests, the procession, and the opening prayer), the readings and instruction, the wedding ritual itself (the vows, rings, and blessing). The section concludes with the reception, since it is a social recapitulation of the religious ceremony.
"Matters of Hospitality" deals with the practicalities of invitations, the rehearsal, instructions you can give to your readers, and models for a printed program.
"Making a Marriage" is a collection of meditations--preparing for marriage, dealing with doubts and jitters, exploring dimensions of marriage in the Bible, and praying.
Finally, "Making the Day: Examples" describes three different weddings.
May your wedding--this crossing of the threshold--be a step into the sacred. May the hand of the holy one who leads you bless and protect you all the days of your life.
Crossing the Threshold
Once upon a time, and not so long ago at that, it was customary for a man to carry his bride over the threshold into his house. The custom, an outward sign of a couple's entry into marriage, is preserved today more in memory than in observance.
Some trace the practice to ancient Rome, where a day of wedding festivities ended at night with a procession. With torches blazing and to the accompaniment of music and singing, the groom's friends escorted the bride to her husband's house, where the entry had been festooned with garlands of flowers in preparation for her arrival. There the married men--those still sober enough to do so--lifted the bride and carried her over the threshold of the groom's doorway into his house.
This Roman custom may, in turn, be a relic of a still more ancient, more primitive practice, when a man quite literally "took a bride." Those were times when a man may have captured a woman, sometimes from a neighboring tribe, and dragged her forcibly into his house. Or the Roman custom may have reflected some early religious beliefs. Many ancient peoples believed that each place had its own attendant spirit. Spirits resided in mountains and lakes, in fields and forests. They lived in the rocks and in crops. They had their place in barns and sheds and households, where they lurked in the rafters or stood guard at the doorsill. Anyone who ignored the spirits of a place ran the risk of offending them and incurring their wrath. The spirits that haunted the threshold were especially powerful, and people believed that stumbling or treading on them through ignorance or preoccupation brought bad luck. Therefore, to make sure the bride didn't trip up and begin her marriage on a wrong footing, she was carried over the threshold in safety.
Today few of us accept the notion that a man takes possession of his wife or, for that matter, that she needs his protection against the impish spirits that lie in wait around doorways. Through gradual disuse more than by conscious consensus, we have allowed the custom to die out slowly. It is a rare groom who carries his bride over the threshold on their wedding night. And yet, even as we reject the custom's superstitious and sexist implications, we can still discover in it a deeper kernel of value. Old practices often express a symbolic truth.
A Wedding Is a Threshold
When you marry, you make a transition. You step over a threshold, crossing from one way of life to another, from being single to being married. You walk across the threshold, not one of you carrying the other, but hand in hand, as equals and as two persons in mutual support. You enter a whole new way of relating to each other and assume an entirely new position in the society around you.
At the threshold of your wedding you step away from what is familiar and predictable and enter a place you have never been before. This transition is like and unlike other thresholds you have already crossed--being born, entering adolescence, graduating, starting a new job--and ones you may yet encounter--giving birth, raising a family, growing old, retiring, dying--in that you have no way of knowing beforehand where you will end up or what you will experience on the other side. In a sense, your wedding is a passage that takes you from the comfortably familiar into a place of mystery. In crossing, you almost hover and are not yet here or there. You step into a time that will leave you feeling disoriented and out of control. You will take on new roles and identities. You will no longer be "your own person," free to do as you please. No longer simply your parents' child, you will be, after a brief ceremony, husband and wife. For as often as you have seen marriage played out by others, or imagined yourselves as married, you don't actually know what married life will be like for you. Even if you have been married before, you still don't know what this marriage will hold for you.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Wedding with Spirit by Gertrud Mueller Nelson, Christopher Witt. Copyright © 2006 Gertrud Mueller Nelson. Excerpted by permission of Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A WEDING WITH SPIRIT has been written for the bride and groom who are searching for something more for their wedding--not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. Ritual and liturgy experts Gertrud Mueller Nelson and Christopher Witt have helped hundreds of couples plan their ceremonies and in these pages they have distilled their years of experience into some basic principles. Instead of trying to orchestrate the happiest day of your life and suffering through catering nightmares, Nelson and Witt help the couple see the wedding as a moment in the larger context of their love. To create such a wedding, A WEDING WITH SPIRIT offers advice in general principles such as location, participants, symbols, prayers, format, readings, blessings, and music. Sections include: * A look at the history and meaning behind familiar wedding traditions* A walk through the ceremony (including the rites of gathering, the readings, and the exchanging of vows and rings) and the reception* Practical advice for the invitations, the rehearsal, and the programs* Pre-marriage guidance (including pertinent meditations and prayers) to enable the bride and groom to begin their union with a firm footing*Three model weddings incorporating all the principles of A WEDING WITH SPIRIT A WEDING WITH SPIRIT ensures that one's wedding day will be about the sacredness of a committed love between two people, about love's ability to create and nurture life, and about the faithfulness and hope that such a love gives witness to. Seller Inventory # CIN0385517890VG
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A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0385517890I4N00
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A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0385517890I3N00
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A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Published by
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2006
ISBN 10: 0385517890
ISBN 13: 9780385517898
Used
Softcover
Seller: Blue Vase Books, Interlochen, MI, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: good. The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials. Seller Inventory # BVV.0385517890.G
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A Wedding with Spirit : A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Published by
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale, 2006
ISBN 10: 0385517890
ISBN 13: 9780385517898
Used
Softcover
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. Reissue. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 2884696-75
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A Wedding with Spirit : A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Published by
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale, 2006
ISBN 10: 0385517890
ISBN 13: 9780385517898
Used
Softcover
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Very Good. Reissue. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 13780180-6
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A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A WEDING WITH SPIRIT has been written for the bride and groom who are searching for something more for their wedding--not more as in bigger, grander, or more lavish, but more as in more meaningful, gracious, and sacred. Ritual and liturgy experts Gertrud Mueller Nelson and Christopher Witt have helped hundreds of couples plan their ceremonies and in these pages they have distilled their years of experience into some basic principles. Instead of trying to orchestrate the happiest day of your life and suffering through catering nightmares, Nelson and Witt help the couple see the wedding as a moment in the larger context of their love. To create such a wedding, A WEDING WITH SPIRIT offers advice in general principles such as location, participants, symbols, prayers, format, readings, blessings, and music. Sections include: * A look at the history and meaning behind familiar wedding traditions* A walk through the ceremony (including the rites of gathering, the readings, and the exchanging of vows and rings) and the reception* Practical advice for the invitations, the rehearsal, and the programs* Pre-marriage guidance (including pertinent meditations and prayers) to enable the bride and groom to begin their union with a firm footing*Three model weddings incorporating all the principles of A WEDING WITH SPIRIT A WEDING WITH SPIRIT ensures that one's wedding day will be about the sacredness of a committed love between two people, about love's ability to create and nurture life, and about the faithfulness and hope that such a love gives witness to. Seller Inventory # CIN0385517890VG
Stock Image
A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful
Published by
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2006
ISBN 10: 0385517890
ISBN 13: 9780385517898
Used
paperback
Seller: HPB-Diamond, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority! Seller Inventory # S_401326602