Gedney FarmCreating your Personalized Ceremony

Your ceremony is the heart of your wedding day… and each wedding ceremony is a completely unique creation. Your ceremony may contain traditional and contemporary elements of your choosing, as well as unique, inspired elements that we create together. The ceremony is fashioned for you alone.

No two couples are alike: your unique story, your families, your cultural and religious heritages as well as those expressions of your shared identities that have become meaningful to you can be honored in your wedding ceremony.

This process begins with questions and a conversation so that I can get to know you, your history and your relationship well. This allows me to create a ceremony that is all about you and your distinctive connections. 

Because I am an ordained minister, relationship coach and intimacy counselor, and have broad inter-spiritual / interfaith training, I bring a lifetime of experience in a wide range of religious, humanistic, and spiritual traditions. I am able to help you in many ways:

  • suggest numerous options for rituals from various wisdom traditions
  • assist you in articulating your own values and intentions for their wedding
  • draw upon a wealth of sources from sacred texts, poetry and prose
  • counsel you both as you create the practical and spiritual foundations for your life together
I am happy to work with you to create your wedding ceremony on short notice when needed.

wed-6Writing the Vows 

Many couples wish to actively participate in the design of their ceremony. By including language and symbols that are meaningful to both partners, you will create a deeper dimension to your special day.

For hundreds of years, wedding vows within each tradition were unaltered. The religious institution’s leader spoke the same proscribed words as a part of every wedding. The couple’s thoughts about the matter were of no consequence. Their wedding was a legal arrangement officiated by the religion of that locale and sanctified by the deity of that religion.

These days couples want the words they speak to come from their hearts. Even when you wish to use words common to the tradition of your childhood, often vows take on a personal flavor. What you promise is particular to you. And what you choose not to say is an important decision, as well. These words are perhaps some of the most significant of your life, so choosing them deserves a conscious process with wise counsel.

I work with you from our first Zoom conversation to help you create the beauty and feel you most would like to imbue your vows, as well as the wedding itself. I share with you a number of sample options and, throughout the interview process, allow you both to discover just which words and thoughts most align your hearts.

wed-7Marriage and Partnership Counseling

You’re in love. For so many reasons, you want to share every aspect of yourself with this person. You’ve worked through enough challenges to know that you belong together.

Through a lifetime of my own determined and deliberate couples counseling, workshops, and trainings, I have studied with many of the current gurus of relationship and intimacy work. I’ve also developed my own practices and work to guide individuals and couples through the challenges that being in any partnership brings up, no matter how much passion and love infuses the marriage.

Having shared in two magnificent marriages, I have personal experience with what makes for a strong, juicy partnership together and a few of the pitfalls that erode intimacy and connection. I share the basic guidelines I have seen prove essential to maintaining the joy and commitment over years of open-hearted connection.

I highly recommend couples invest in their relationship with a series of preliminary counseling sessions prior to your wedding. Again and again couples reflect to me just how enlightening these meetings has been for them personally and how vital it, and further marriage mentoring, has proven to be in their continued lives together. The beauty of the wedding ceremony itself is only the first step to a truly life-sustaining and joy-filled marriage.

Please speak with me about arranging in-person or Zoom sessions to explore next steps to building a richer foundation for your lives together.