5 Trends For Your Contemporary Wedding Ceremony

5 Trends For Your Contemporary Wedding Ceremony
By Annemarie Juhlian, Seattle Wedding Officiant
www.marriedbyannemarie.com

As you are planning your wedding ceremony, kick it up a bit and incorporate unique elements and rituals to celebrate your lifetime moment.

Today’s bride and groom often want their ceremony to be a celebration of their loving relationship and a public opportunity to express their uniqueness as a couple and gratitude to family and friends.  A well-designed ceremony offers a gentle balance between the traditional/sacred and contemporary.

As you consider what’s possible for your wedding ceremony, here are 5 fun and unique trends that I see for couples in 2014

1)     The Officiant/Minister Moves Around - To create a dynamic ceremony where the presentation is directed not only to the couple but to family and friends, your Officiant/Minister moves around the ceremony space.  Not only does this make for a more intimate ceremony but it allows a photographer to get wedding ceremony photos of a couple without having the Officiant/Minister in the way.

2)     Pooch Mania!  More and more couples are including their beloved dogs within their ceremony – whether this is a walk down the aisle, presenting the rings at the ring exchange or being a part of another ceremony moment. 

3)     Unexpected Surprises – In the past couple of years, I have worked with couples to incorporate a special surprise and/or unexpected moment into their ceremony.   One year, I worked with a groom to create a “proposal moment” before his wedding vows as he never formally proposed to his Sweetheart.  Last summer, one of my couples presented hand-crafted and personalized keepsake boxes to their parents with a special note of gratitude.  It’s not about a surprise being “big,” it is about a surprise being appropriate and real.

4)     Guys and Gals on “Both Sides” – One of the most fun trends I see is “guys and gals” on both sides of a wedding party line-up.   For instance, at one recent wedding, a groom had his sister as “Best Person” and she stood up with his guys.  At another wedding, I had guys and gals on both sides as this couple had an amazing variety of friends – both male and female.

5)     Passing Of The Rings – Here is a new twist on a part of the ring ceremony/exchange.  Before a couple exchanges rings, the Officiant/Minister orchestrates the passing of the rings to the wedding party and asks each person to momentarily take the rings and imbue a good wish into the rings. This trend works because it involves the wedding party in the ceremony and invites personal participation.

Annemarie Juhlian is a Seattle-based Non-Denominational Wedding Officiant & Minister.  She works with couples of all faiths and traditions to create contemporary and personalized ceremonies. She lives outside of Seattle on Bainbridge Island with her husband, Greg, and their family of special needs dogs.  When she isn’t working in the wedding world, you can most often find her working in dog rescue and rehabilitation throughout Seattle/Tacoma, WA.  (www.marriedbyannemarie.com)

Meet Annemarie during Weddings in Woodinville 2014 at Willows Lodge-tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets.

Wedding Planning Tips: Toasts

Take the stress off giving the perfect toast to the happy couple with Event Success’s 3 top toasting tips:

1. Make your toast heartfelt 
2. Don’t talk about only one person, include both partners
3. Your target time should be less than three minutes 

          *Bonus if you can make them laugh or cry!

Tips to toasting success by Event Success. Photo courtesy of Joe+Jill Photography

Wedding Planning Tips: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Having outdoor garden or winery weddings in the Pacific Northwest, an element to consider (besides rain) is that temperatures drop in the evening.  Wedding planner, Jacky Grotle of Event Success, suggests outdoor patio heaters, tent heat blowers, blankets, bonfires (don’t forget to have the fixings for s’mores), and her personal favorite, and cost effective choice, Pashminas. 

Top left photo courtsey of Jennifer Tai Photo Artistry; top right photo courtsey of Amelia Soper Photography; bottom photo courtsey of Azzura Photography

For more great wedding planning tips follow Weddings in Woodinville
on social media and on our blog!

Wedding Planning Tips: For the couple that has everything, may we suggest giving back

Choosing a charity that is close to your heart is a way to pay-it-forward and can be useful for the couple that already has everything.

Event Success’s, Jacky Grotle, suggests to clients whose households are already complete, or those that have avidity for helping others, to give back through making a charitable ‘registry’.  A few of her favorite sites that allow you to “celebrate generously” include:

Get Hitched Give Hope
I Do Foundation
Just Give

Jacky suggests ways to communicate your desire for guests to make a donation in your name to the cause you care about most is through your wedding website, an insert with your invitation, signage and/or a photo at the event with information about your charity, or a take-away with a tag. 

Charitable wedding registry from Event Success. Photo by Azzura Photography

Event Success couple, Lee and Linda, thanked their guests for celebrating their special day with them through make a donation to a cause very close to their heart and gave each guest a long-stem red rose at the end of their celebration with a tag identifying those recipient charities.  Attached to the long stem red roses was a card saying "A gift has been made in your honor to Save the Children and Foto Kids in Quatemala to bring lasting change for children in need. Linda & Lee"

Wedding Advice - Toasting the Couple