Wedding questions...

[cydira]

I'm looking for a little advice here. My fiancee and I are trying to plan our wedding and we're stuck on a few difficulties. Aside from the logistics of money, guests, and feeding a small army, there's a few other points that I've to admit are rather diffcult. The biggest challenge, after the question of location, is that of the ceremony.

I was raised in an agnostic household. My family, with the exception of my immediate family, are Protestant and very tolerant of other religions, for the most part. He was raised in a predominantly Catholic household and his family is mostly Catholic.

I'd like to have a handfasting. He's thinking that a civil ceremony would be best and alienate the least number of people in our families. My mother is pushing for a Catholic ceremony while his parent's just don't care what we do, so long as his father gets to wear a tux.

It's some what confusing and a bit nervewracking to try to plan a wedding with a ton of familial conflicts to be concerned with. To add the question of religious beliefs and ideology into the mix is almost a recipie for a disaster. If some one else has crossed through waters as turgid as this, I'd love to hear how you made it through.

Thanks. :)

[Skye]

My husband and I wrote our own cerimony, I was wonderful.

His family and friend are mostly christian, so we wanted something that was suitable for everyone.

No one ever noticed there was no mention af god, nor were they asked to pray, they were ask 'each of you in thier own way, give this couple your blessings'

Good Luck to you both, maybe you will decide to write your own.

[cydira]

I'll have to suggest that to him tomorrow. Thanks! :)

Btw: Does any one know what foods are safe for people that have PKU? His family has a few people who suffer with it and my family has some people who are diabetics. I kinda know what's safe for diabetics, but I've no idea what would be an option with PKU.

Can't have a reception where people have allergic reactions or worse... just would spoil everything.

[Theres]

i don't know what to feed them, but you could throw me a bone... what's PKU?

[Apotheosis]

We're getting married in July, I'm a Universalist Pagan, she is nonreligious. I was raised Catholic/Taoist/Buddhist, she was raised nonreligious. Aside from her Grandmother hoping for a Mormon wedding (Thats a good one, gran!), there really is no pressure on us.

Now, I don't believe you can get married in a Catholic ceremony unless you are both Catholic. I seem to recall that my maternal grandparents (He protestant, she Catholic) had a lot of problems with the Catholic church over his religion. Times have changed, but you might want to look into that should you cave and go Catholic.

We've decided we *do* want to have the "traditional" style of wedding (ceremony->reception->dance), and we wanted the spiritual side of the day to be congruent with the family so the emphasis is on the community and our declaration of love and devotion before that community. While I'd be fine with a handfasting, and have been to a few in my day, most of the guestlist would be very put off by the new-age style of it all.

So we're getting married in a United church, by a female priest. We get to write our own vows, and while Jesus is going to be invited, I'm ok with that, because I'm on good terms with Jesus in my own special way. We will get to express our love and devotion for one another before the community, and the divine, without compromising my spiritual beliefs or wierding out the relations.

Although grandma is still cranky we're not going Mormon.

[Demeter]

I recently attended the wedding of my junior priestess, 98% of whose family is Italian and had no idea she is pagan. They wrote their own ceremony, which was very eclectic, including a Bible reading (Song of Songs), a native American blessing, and some romantic poetry. They included a literal "handfasting" in which the minister wrapped a white cord loosely around their joined hands and explained it to the audience as symbolic of their joining in marriage. They also lit a unity candle and poured two glasses of wine into one glass to drink from. And everybody said how lovely and interesting and personal it was ... And we of her coven, who had arrived early to set up the little altar and packed it up afterwards, just smiled little secret smiles to ourselves ...

[cydira]

PKU is a short hand for an allergy to phenolkeuretics (I'm doing a terrible job on spelling this). I don't understand it very well, but it's got something to do with the body having difficulties with certian protiens, enzmes, and food additives, I think.

I honestly have no idea where to *start* getting information and I'm getting told by my future mother in law that I should probably read up on it because it's becoming more common in the genetic heritage of his family. Which means, there's probably a fairly high chance of future children being diagnosed with this.

I'm kinda confused by the whole thing. All I know is that there's some little kids in his family that can't eat certian foods that everyone else can eat and I don't want to serve the wrong thing or have it as an ingrediant and cause one of these sweethearts to have a severe, potentially fatal, allergic reaction. The thought of that just terrifies me.

[Apotheosis]

They are the ones responsible for informing you as to what dietary restrictions they have, anything else would require superhuman effort on your part.

Perhaps send out invitation early enough to allow for the responses to alter the menu choice for dinner (including dietary restriction information on the RSVP).

[Amethyst Rose]

My husband and I eloped 5 years ago and never told anyone (long story, don't want to go into it :)) However, we're "getting married" this summer (on Summer Solstice), by a J.P. in my parent's back yard. I plan on including a few handfasting elements.... exchanging wine and bread with the guests, and maybe jumping the broom. The majority of people who will be there however, are either non-religious or really religious, so we decided to do a religion-free ceremony, just to keep everything civil. :)

[cydira]

Your ideas and suggestions are a really big help to me. It's helping me not to be so anxious about all of this. :)

I do have one other question.

How can I get my fiancee to stop suggesting we pay disco at the reception? :D

[Skye]

Originally posted by cydira

Your ideas and suggestions are a really big help to me. It's helping me not to be so anxious about all of this. :)

I do have one other question.

How can I get my fiancee to stop suggesting we pay disco at the reception? :D

good luck!

[Azure]

With regards to PKU - make sure there are options on the menu that don't contain Neutrasweet and other Aspartame based artificial sweetners, and label anything that does.

Cydira - give your fiance one big disco number early on in the dancing, guaranteed to get everyone out on the dance floor, and dance to it your self with good humor, then you can pack it in for the rest of the evening and everyone will have got their way.

[Shinko]

A lot of things will have little warnings to people with PKU on the label if it's potentially harmful.

I have to say I feel a lot better about my own wedding difficulties after reading through this thread. 8O Me and my fiance are planning on getting married in July, and we're having some similar problems. He's agnostic, and the majority of his family and friends live on the other side of the country and would be content just to be able to come to the wedding. However, all of my family is Christian and Jewish. In fact, I'll probobly be one of the few people at the wedding who aren't Christian or Jewish. Because of this, I've had to make a lot of compromises in how the ceremony would be run. We were going to do a civil wedding at the justice of the peace, but that ended up being too expensive (we have a very limited budget). We'll most likely be married by the pastor of my parent's church. I'm all right with this, because he's a very nice and open-minded person. But recently my mother has been pressuring me to have the ceremony in the church, which I would not be OK with. I know I would not feel right being married in a Christian church (for a number of personal reasons), and the very thought of it almost drives me to tears. I'd like an outdoor wedding, but we're worried about the cost and finding a location. I know my mother is making the church suggestion out of financial and not religious reasons, which makes it harder to refuse.

I like the idea of writing your own ceremony, I hadn't thought of that. I think I'll run it by my fiance and see what he thinks tomorrow. I still want an outdoor wedding, but you know how dealing with one's mother can be sometimes. :p I'm just trying to focus on making it through fresman year and having this baby first (due beginning of June...) before I start worrying about my wedding! :woah:

[Scarlettvixen]

Hi cydira

we got married 4yrs ago
husbands family is catholic - and very strict - my term for them is Nazi catholic lol

my family are basically methodists - tho the names are different here in australia

both of us are pagan and both of us r in the broom closet especially with our families.
his parents were angry that i wouldnt convert to catholicism, my mother was angry that i wouldnt get married in a church by a priest!

my compromise was a civil ceremony but a marriage celebrant in the local community hall with afternoon tea served after the ceremony. we were getting married outside in the gardens, but it was pouring with rain at the time so we moved it lol.
we wrote our vows which made it very personal - there was no mention whatsoever of God and we finished with the Apache wedding prayer.

i have included a few links on PKU - have a look i am sure one will have a recipe/foods they cant eat link

Scarlett
http://www.pkunetwork.org/
http://www.pku-allieddisorders.org/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disease/Phenylketo.html

[cydira]

Great!! I've been struggling to find more out about it.

My future mother in law has told me that there's a strong chance of our children possibly being born with it so I've decided that I have yet more of a reason to look it up. I'm just getting tired of dragging out the dictionary to decipher some of the stuff I'm reading. :T

Shinko, if it's the cost of location that's a bit of a problem for you when it comes to an outdoor location, try looking into the local parks where you live. My fiancee and I are certian that we want an outdoor wedding (even if my allergies act up, darn it! :T) and we're considering our alternate locations incase of rain.

You may want to use the approach with your Mom that you'd use a church reception hall as your rain location. Or something else like that, and plan an outdoor wedding near there. Comprimise is a good word, but I'm starting to feel like I'm getting called on to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring factions at times. :eek:

Any suggestions on how to deal with my aunts? Here's the deal, they were invited to the engagement party, and they never showed up. They lived next door to me for most of the past year, nothing was said about the engagement. The holidays came along and, again, nothing was said about the engagement. Finally, this April at Easter dinner at my grandparents' house, they give me a card saying congrats and offering to make my wedding cake. They're infamous for how *bad* their cakes are and half the time they make them, people will get mild food poisioning from their butter frosting. My grandmother, a dear, sweet, kind woman that's also the domaneering matriarch of my father's side of the family, wants me to have my aunts cater the reception and make the cake.

I don't want to do it. I'm considering not inviting them, because they ignored one of the most important events in my life for roughly a year and then decided to give my fiancee and I a card. I'm not sure what to do on this one. Any suggestions?

They did the same with my college graduation too. <scowls> I'm not happy with them. Dan, my fiancee, tells me not to be so angry and that I'm just giving them what they want, attention. It's kinda hard not to be angry with them. Considering the fact that they gave my brother and his wife a congratulations card virtually immediately after they were married, when most of the family didn't even know when the wedding was going to be.

You know, I really appreciate the support y'all are giving me on this. :) It's very helpful for my sanity to have some where I can vent all of this anxiety and fustration. :D Now, if only I could find a dress that I like... that wasn't too expensive. :rolleye:

As it is, it looks like Dan and I have figuered out about half of what we're doing when it comes to the ceremony. We're still discussing what we want do do when it comes to our vows, we're talking about writing out vows and I'd like to draw some from the handfasting rituals I've seen. He's uncertian if that'd be a wise idea given the situation. We've decided on a civil ceremony with a outline that's kinda close to the "traditional" wedding. The big question now is location and what we're doing with our vows.

All, y'all have been a *huge* help. Y'all rock! :D

PS: Shinko, freshman year is easy to get through. Just do what the prof tells you and if there's any questions, ask! Even if it seems like a dumb question, ask it! If I had kept those two things in mind, I probably wouldn't have failed a couple of classes... :rolleye: I can't suggest anything about the baby, though. Don't have much experience with pregancy, yet! :T

[cydira]

These websites are *really* helpful. I didn't even need a dictionary... for most of it. :D

Thanks. Maeby a thread should be started under the "Healthy Pagans" forum on this stuff. I bet there's other folks that could get some help from it, probably more then I can right now, even...

hmm....


Thanks again! :D

[MoonDust]

Originally posted by cydira
My mother is pushing for a Catholic ceremony while his parent's just don't care what we do, so long as his father gets to wear a tux.
Now those are the cool in-laws. :D

It seems like MW is helping out My only suggestion would be to write your own stuff. And remember it’s your wedding. No one else’s. They’ll be your memories.