A Wedding with Spirit: A Guide to Making Your Wedding (and Marriage) More Meaningful - Softcover

Nelson, Gertrud Mueller Mueller; Witt, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385517890 ISBN 13: 9780385517898

Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

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.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.

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"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.

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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...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0385517890
• ISBN 13: 9780385517898
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland