Wedding Ceremony Trend Predictions from a Wedding Officiant
The pandemic changed the world—including the world of weddings. With so much less pressure on what a wedding ceremony should or shouldn’t look like, couples’ creativity is exploding! As a wedding officiant, here are the top wedding ceremony trends that I’m seeing:
Your Ceremony, Your Way
@lisavigliottaphotography
Since no two couples are alike, no two ceremonies need to be the same. Many officiants now allow couples to personalize vows, tell their love story, select poems or readings, and even choose the wording for the legal portions of the ceremony. Ceremonies have become an opportunity to narrate the beginning of this new chapter in their lives!
Officiant for the Day
@redsuitcasephotography
Couples often ask a friend or family member to be involved in the ceremony, or even perform the entire ceremony (minus the legal bits that require a licensed officiant). They’ll have their loved one tag team with an officiant. Or ask the officiant to perform a legal signing or civil ceremony with witnesses present and take care of the legalities in a short ceremony, then leave the public ceremony in the creative hands of the “officiant for the day.”
Social Media Moment
@redsuitcasephotography
As a wedding officiant, I can almost hear the groans when a couple asks that everyone put away phones and cameras for an “unplugged ceremony.” Who am I to mess with 85-year-old Uncle Ernie and his iPad recording the entire celebration? Rather than fight it, more and more couples are building a social media moment right into their ceremony script!
Here’s how it looks: During the initial greeting, the officiant still asks that phones be muted and cameras put away for the processional. Once the couple is in place and facing one another, the officiant invites everyone to pull out their cameras and phones and for the next minute, take as many photos as they would like. The officiant steps out of the picture and friends and family snap away. After that minute is up, the officiant invites everyone to put away their phones and be present without the distraction of technology.
Reimagined Roles
@redsuitcasephotography
Groomsmen prancing down the aisle with fanny packs, showering your guests in flower petals. Your fur-babies bearing your rings. Grandmothers as witnesses on your legal documentation or acting as “flower grannies.” I see many of the traditional roles reimagined with different characters. The bridal parties may no longer have girls on one side and boys on the other and everyone in the same dress or suit. Officiants are now being invited to stand in the aisle facing the couple and allowing them to look at their people and have their friends and families see their faces as they publicly declare their love for one another rather than the officiant being in the center of the vows, the ring exchange, the kiss!
So as we forge ahead in this new normal, keep in mind that the options are endless. Plan a ceremony that’s unique to who you are as a couple, engage your friends and family in these moments, and make memories throughout your ceremony.
Amber Shurr is a professional wedding officiant with Enduring Promises. Follow Enduring Promises on Facebook and Instagram.
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Featured Image: @josie.wolthuis
