Weddings from the Heart: Contemporary and Traditional Ceremonies for an Unforgettable Wedding

By Daphne Rose Kingma

Book Overview

Planning the Wedding YOU Want

At the heart of a wedding is a relationship-and that is what the ceremony should reflect in every way. Your wedding should be as unique and special as your love is. If you want to plan an unforgettable day, start with the heart.

This is your day. When you're planning your marriage ceremony, it can feel like the to-dos and checklists are endless. There's always more you could be doing, more you could be planning and organizing. But at the end of the day, it's about you and your relationship. It's not about impressing people with your perfectly iced cake or your breathtaking venue, it's about honoring your love. This means crafting a ceremony that reflects your relationship and is as unique and special as your bond is. Don't lose the spirit of the day by getting overwhelmed by details that may not matter to you.

It's the essence that matters. Your wedding day isn't meant to be a social event. It's meant to be an emotional experience and an expression of your love. Relationship expert and "love doctor" Daphne Rose Kingma is here to help you plan a day that is a deeply moving experience--one that you won't even need photographs to remember (but of course, they're still nice to have ). She reminds us that it's the essence of the ceremony that matters. And this comes from the words that are exchanged in your wedding vows, the atmosphere you create, and the love generated through each special moment. Whether you want a traditional wedding or a contemporary ceremony, there is a way to celebrate the day that is true to you.

Open this book up and find:

Five different types of ceremonies you can useInspiration and examples of vowsWorksheets to guide you through creating a personalized wedding day

Readers of books like A Practical Wedding Planner, The Bride's Instruction Manual, Love Poems, and The Knot Yours Truly will love Kingma's Weddings from the Heart.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573248614
• ISBN13: 9781573248617
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Conari Press
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A must if you are writing your own wedding ceremony!

My fiance and I decided early on in the stages of planning our wedding that we wanted to write our own ceremony. We were getting married in a garden setting and wanted a ceremony that reflected our personalities, feelings and the joy we felt at being together and committed for the rest of our lives.This book gave us so many great ideas on how first, to structure the ceremony, and then some of the wording we could use. We didn't copy any ceremony exactly, but the ideas that this book provides are great! I can't tell you how many people came up to us afterward and said it was the best wedding ceremony they had ever attended!

Comments from a Marriage Celebrant

I have found this book a great resource in preparing for Wedding Ceremonies. I have conducted over three hundred weddings in South Australia and this book is one that I recommend to couples who are searching for inspirational material. The book is practical, down to earth and encourages couples to explore, discuss and develop their own thoughts from a wide range of example material. Worth a read!

Weddings from the Heart : Contemporary and Traditional Cerem

An excellent book for those planning a nondenominational wedding. With a keen interest in spirituality and creativity, hours of searching at libraries and bookstores lead us to this book. Kingma recognizes that every wedding ceremony is unique and offers the food for thought that many need to formulate a meaningful event. She defines "types" of marriages the first section. As one might expect of any relationship, we found that while none applied exclusively, there was some meaning in each. This exercise helped us engage our officiant in a thought and discovery process about our vision for a ceremony. The descriptions of traditions from various cultures stimulated our creativity; the outline of traditional western wedding components offered structure; and a list of readings included one of our final choice readings (adapted from the Christian Bible in an amazingly polically correct manner).

Building Blocks for a Beautiful Ceremony

I was recently married in a Baha'i ceremony. In the Baha'i Faith, the only required/prescribed element is the one-line vow, "We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God." Other than that, we were on our own. The thing that made this book so incredibly helpful is that the author describes the various elements or building blocks of a wedding ceremony, e.g. processional, convocation, readings, vows, benediction, etc. We were able to easily adapt her "building blocks" by inserting writings and prayers from the Baha'i Faith, the New Testament, and other sources -- even a "family medallion" ceremony to honor my son! It was warm and wonderful and everyone tells us it was the most beautiful ceremony they'd ever seen. Yes, some of Kingma's suggested readings and speeches are corny -- we didn't use a single one of her suggested vows or writings. And her prose isn't as graceful as some I've seen. But if you want a book that is really helpful with the nitty-gritty, this is the one to have. We definitely couldn't have made our ceremony as meaningful and beautiful without this book. Buy it!

This was our favorite book!

This was the most complete source for our ceremonial planning. The suggestions were great for anyone wanting a very non-traditional, spiritually based (not necessarily religious)unforgettable wedding. the author presents different types of ceremonies (ie: 2nd marriages, alternative lifestyles. We picked and chose many different sections of the book to create our entire ceremony. This is a great book to help in planning if you don't want the common, boring, religious-based ceremony.