Let's Design A Wedding Part 2 | celebrant kiama, your family moments

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Let's Design A Wedding Part 2 | celebrant kiama, your family moments

Let’s Design a Wedding… Part I It is difficult to find a single point at which to begin planning your wedding; most people begin by choosing almost simultaneously the where and the when. The where is almost always influenced by the choice of reception site which then leads to where the wedding ceremony should be held. The choice of reception site is often determined by its availability, its pricing and its reputation; it can take some juggling to get alignment between these factors but you eventually will. Now people begin to think about the wedding ceremony itself, namely who is going to marry us? Should you choose a church wedding then it gets a little easier because the where and the who come as a package; should you opt for a civil ceremony then you are faced with choosing a celebrant. In the Illawarra, you have no lack of choice as there are ninety-eight Certified Marriage Celebrants between Helensburgh and Nowra; but which one to choose? It will again come down to availability, pricing and reputation although you are now looking for their availability on a date which matches the reception site booking you have made. The internet will now play its part and it’s here I’ll add a cautionary note; as a tool to show you your choices, the net is unparalleled in its search abilities. However, what you are looking at is nothing more than the celebrant’s ability to use technology to leap into your lounge room; the pages of material you are now faced with is not a reflection of the quality of the celebrant but rather their marketing skills. Having raised a cautionary hand, I should at least offer a solution. I believe it comes down to two key factors, firstly, the degree to which the three of you can work together during the design phase; secondly, the trust you develop in the celebrant’s communication skills and therefore their public speaking capabilities. Can they bring what now exists on paper to life? Here is a suggested methodology: • Be proactive by asking your friends and relatives for the names of potential celebrants; ask them to ask their friends and build a list of celebrants that people you trust have seen in action. • Look for celebrants who are members of a professional association and work in your local area, for example Australian Marriage Celebrants Inc. • Visit the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department web site to locate local celebrants. • Draw up a list from your research of four or five likely contenders. • Now the key point; construct your celebrant interview, much as you would prepare to interview a prospective employee. • What should you ask? Here are some suggestions:  Why are you the best celebrant to help us design and then conduct our wedding?  When designing our ceremony with us, do you begin with a blank sheet of paper?  What do you think we should expect of you as our celebrant?  Tell us about the worst wedding you’ve ever had to perform?  If a guest’s child begins to cry loudly during the ceremony, what would you do?  If we watched a video of your last five weddings, how much difference would we see between them?  Which do you prefer as a ceremony within the ceremony, the Hand Fastening ceremony or the Sand Ceremony?  What mistakes do couples make when designing their wedding ceremony?  Why do you work as a marriage celebrant? • Set up your interview notes so you can record each celebrant’s answers for later comparison. It helps if one of you does the talking and the other the recording. • From your interview select two celebrants you want to meet and set up the appointments. • Meet with the celebrants and make your decision; don’t be afraid to select a third for interview if the first two don’t impress. The objective of this process is to find someone you can work with; there are no right or wrong answers to the above questions but there is an insight into the person you will be trusting to design and deliver one of the most important days of your life. Think about the pair of you and the type of person you might work best with. Do you want a talker or a listener; a highly-structured step by step individual or a broad brush “make it up as we go along” person? Will you both want the same kind of person or are you likely to each have different views? How good are you both at dealing with conflict over the decision making? Remember this whole process is designed to bring you ever closer together, for life; not tear it apart before it begins. OK, now I need to give in to my intuitive side and put the logical thinking away for a moment. The world as you know it will not end if you just trust your “gut instinct”; that feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time and you, within minutes, feel a “bond” or “rapport” with them, as if you’ve known them forever. You can’t explain it, there is no logic to it but it’s your intuition giving them the big tick of approval; so, trust it, go with it and try not to act surprised when it all works out. Next time I’ll talk about what happens once you have chosen your celebrant; ‘till then happy interviewing.

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Your Family Moments

This week's blog - Let's talk symbols When a wedding ceremony is being designed .......... http://www.yourfamilymoments.com.au/blog

Are You My Friend or my Bestie? When you turn up to Naming Days, Funerals and Weddings, as a Civil Celebrant, you become acutely aware of the word “friend” and what it might mean to the various people who are attending the ceremony. I don’t mean “relatives”, those people you inherited, I mean the others with whom you have no familial ties and were free to choose. For some time now I’ve been pondering what we mean by the term - friend? First up, I went to Wikipedia for some definitional help and was surprised by what I found. “A friend is a person you like or know. People who are friends talk to each other and spend time together. They also help each other when they are in trouble or are hurt. Friends are people that can be looked up to and trusted.” The definition goes further, but I just want the general flavour, not the detail. So, armed with this concept of “friend” I started to look at people in the setting of the ceremony they were attending and I started to ask a couple of questions. How long have you known each other? When was the last time you talked to each other? Their answers again surprised me and to deal with the concept, I’ve had to think about a friend classification scale and here’s what I’ve come up with. First point on the scale: “acquaintance” – someone you keep tripping across because they know the same people you do or hangout the same places you do. You can have “acquaintances” spread throughout history and contact with them is accidental; they have not progressed to the next level, “friend”, and are unlikely to do so. The chances are they don’t know much about you and nor you about them; you just keep seeing each other and chatting. Then there is “friend” – this is someone you see regularly or someone you once knew more closely but the context in which you knew them (school, work, sport) has now disappeared and you often accidentally rediscover them, rather than purposefully trying to catch up. Your history is littered with them and for a period you are travelling or have travelled the highway of life together and in that time, you were close. It’s likely you had occasions where there were groups of you but singular contact was not unusual; when you rediscover them e.g. wedding, it’s a “long lost friend” scenario. It’s unlikely to last at any significant level, promises are made, but it was good to catch up; however, in rare cases, it can undergo complete metamorphosis and be elevated to new heights. And finally, “bestie” – now this one comes with challenges; it comes the closest to the Wikipedia definition but you should understand the possibility of it having a two-dimensional nature. “Besties” transcend contexts; I said earlier these relationships are two dimensional. On the one hand, they meet all the Wikipedia criteria and more; on the other hand, they are not dependant on context and even though the original context was important in their establishment, it is no longer relevant. There are often only a few of them and they hold a privileged position in your life; the level of trust and respect you have for each other sometimes rivals that between you and your partner. Now the point of all this is simple, any valued relationship requires work on your part to keep it alive; friendships are no different, without nurture a “bestie” drops back into the miasma called friendship and sometimes drops from your circle of friends altogether. So, have a look at your personal list; who are your current “besties”? Are you investing in these relationships or is it a one-way street? Who has dropped off your “bestie” list and is it time to give it another go? Whatever your situation, I’m sure you’ll find an excuse for a cup of coffee in there somewhere.

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www.yourfamilymoments.com.au Part 2 - What's in a vow ..... In Part 1 I talked about the background to your wedding vows; now I’m going to help you write your vows. Whenever I’ve helped someone overcome “vow block”, I do it by beginning with structure, i.e. a beginning a middle and an end. Then I suggest they begin in the middle. In writing your bespoke vows I think it is important to consider what you and your partner might value most within your marriage; you might need to think back to discussions you’ve had about each other’s expectations. One of the top expectations might be that your wedding will last; another might be that there will be equality within the marriage, another might be there is a focus on communication, or at least these are the things researchers tell us people expect. So, if I take it step by step; first think about any of the expectations you have talked about and just write them down; whatever comes into your head. It might look like this: affection, finances, household roles, communication, sex, in-laws, children, decision making, residence, time with friends/ mates, conflict resolution, vacations, employment, study, selfishness, food, furniture, TV, religion, politics, gardening, gambling, clothes, fitness, health, take for granted, independence, equality, to name a few. The above list will now help you choose broad ideas that can cover groups of these words; and can be used to express these ideas as a single vow. For example: Love, Commitment, Communication, Fun, Equality. Let’s look at “equality” as a vow; in its simplest form, it could look like this: I vow we will share our journey as equals; in all things and in all ways; or in a slightly more complicated form: I vow to remember to act in a way that encourages you to contribute to our decision making; to give power to the concept of “we” in everything we do. You are an intelligent, thoughtful and accomplished individual who brings to our marriage a depth of experience I would be stupid to ignore. By acting as “one” we can take on the World. Once you have worked through each of the broad areas of expectation, and have a vow for each area, it is now time to complete your vows with an opening and closing paragraph from the heart, to end up with: Beginning (Partner name), how can I begin to tell you what you mean to me; if every star in the sky came to my aid, I’d still fall short of being able to tell you how much I love you. You came into my life and it was as if a piece of a puzzle snapped into place; I knew from the first moment I saw you that we would spend eternity together. Today we begin our journey of a life-time and I want the world to know how happy I feel at the thought of sharing my life with you. Middle (Partner name), I vow to always love you and to offer you proof of that in everything I do. I vow to never take what we have for granted; something this precious demands my full attention and commitment. I vow we will share our journey as equals; in all things and in all ways. Communication is the foundation upon which our marriage will be built; I vow to continually seek to understand you and to be understood by you. I vow to bring joy into our lives, so that we might grow old with smiles on our faces, in a home filled with laughter. End (Partner name), at the close of each day, I don’t know how life will have challenged us since the sun first crept over the horizon that morning; however, I do know that whatever came our way, be it good or bad, the last thing you’ll hear from me each night, will always be “I love you”. The above example is a little on the formal side; and people ask me if it’s OK to introduce humour into this part of the ceremony? Only you can answer that because you know the tone you’re trying to create; just remember it’s your wedding and within the boundaries of what would be considered tasteful, it’s yours to design.

Part 1 What’s in a vow… Wedding coming up and you need to get your vows written; or maybe you are planning to renew your vows as part of a marriage anniversary? I thought I’d take a minute this week, to reflect on what is the core of any marriage ceremony, the vows. Contrary to popular opinion you are not writing your vows to reduce your family and guests to tears; your vows are intended for one person alone and that is your bride/ groom (partner) and there may well be tears but that’s a consequence not a goal. Once you get over that hurdle you’re in with a chance because good writing begins with the reader or in this case the listener in mind. So, if you are writing for your partner’s ears then your vows will be tailored to you and your partner’s expectations of marriage; that said, I’m assuming you already know what your partner’s expectations are. You don’t; then why on earth are you getting married? It might be back to marriage counselling and an exploration of what you both have in common that is your starting point. People about to marry rarely have a complete picture of their partner; such insight may take years to develop or may never be totally be revealed; but the big issues (e.g. children, residency, money) will need to have been discussed or those first few months are going to be very interesting. You could live together (I think it’s called “trying before buying”) and Australians certainly are comfortable with doing that; more than 80% of marrying couples in 2015 had had some period of living together before they married. There are plusses and minuses to this; the major disadvantage seems to be the attitude that develops around assets and debt. The “my money”, “your money” vs. “our money” conflicts that may be carried over into a marriage can be very destructive; but on the positive side there is a chance to experience your partner in situations that give you an awareness as to the real person. So back to writing those vows; a vow, a promise or an oath has at its centre an idea of being a binding commitment. When someone says “I vow to treat you equally in our marriage”, they are not saying I’ll “try” they are saying “I will”; “I’ll find a way.”, “I’ll spare no effort.”, “I’ll make it happen!”. In designing a bespoke wedding ceremony, a civil celebrant is yes working with you to design a magic day; but the celebrant (hopefully) is also working with you to help you understand the nature of your commitment to each other; in front of the people on this planet you hold most dear. Within a marriage ceremony, conducted by a civil celebrant, the Law requires the marrying couple to make a vow or promise, using specific wording prescribed by the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth); and it will sound like this: “I ask the people here present to witness that I, (Full Name), take you, (Full Name), to be my lawful wedded Wife/Husband.” It is not sufficient for the marriage celebrant to say the words, and for the marrying couple to then say “I do.”, the words must be spoken by each of them and any changes to the wording of this sentence may only be those changes allowed within the Act. On paper and contained in a sentence, it looks so easy; however, remember, this is for life. The marriage is in fact established at the point of you saying these words in the presence of the marriage celebrant and a minimum of two adult witnesses. The minimum wording above meets the Act’s legal requirements but many marrying couples find it doesn’t fully express the promises they want to make. No need to panic, there is no limit to the amount of content vows may contain if the minimal legal requirements are met. In Part 2 I’ll explore how to create words from the heart that accurately reflect your feelings for your partner and provide a back-drop to your married life.

I miss you so much… The pain of losing a family member or friend is so real it can be experienced at both a psychological and physiological level. When people tell you their heart is breaking it can actually feel as if it is; it comes from the level of stress hormones within their body. Mentally a fog descends, leading to confusion and forgetfulness; it is a feeling of being disconnected, which in reality is the mind trying to protect itself from the stress. Their focus is extremely short term, literally days not months or years; they are fixated on the last few days and are reliving the events that preceded the death and the aftermath. It begins with disbelief and confusion; moves through reorganising events in a bargaining style (what if this had happened, what if I’d done something different); sometimes ending in guilt and/ or anger but eventually it will turn to acceptance. Some people are able to regain functional normality within weeks; for others the journey may take much longer. The fact is it never really goes away, nor should it. A song, a photo even a smell can bring events hurtling back with some of the accompanying pain; times like Christmas, birthdays or anniversaries can be a catalyst for reawakened thoughts and feelings. However, it will diminish; the focus will move from the pain of the actual event and the days that followed to memories of a lifetime. Acceptance is the end goal, the ability to hold close the memories of a life well lived and the integration of those memories into everyday living. So what should you do if confronted by a person who has recently experienced a loss? It is not as hard as you would imagine to provide comfort and to help them reduce their stress. Firstly, here are some things you should know about yourself, and that you’ll need to confront if you are to be of any assistance: 1. You will find it difficult to talk to your family member/ friend to the point of avoiding contact with them. Solution, you don’t need to talk but they do; encourage them by asking open questions e.g. “How are you feeling today?”. Be comfortable with a short answer, a delayed answer or no answer at all. The key is to persist, to gently probe and to seek a response; eventually the expectation will be that during your visits it is normal for them to talk about their difficulties in adjusting to the loss. 2. You might be tempted to issue them with instructions and to take over their everyday activities, their life. Solution, don’t do it for them, work with them by assisting in normal day to day tasks, chatting as you go. 3. You might be uncomfortable with the emotions that accompany loss and try to shut them down. Solution, instead of telling them to “pull yourself together”, sanction the emotion “I have little understanding of what you are going through; but it must really hurt!”, then be quiet. 4. You are not there to “fix things” you are there to support; if you become concerned about any aspects of your relative/ friend’s coping behaviours then a referral to a grief counsellor is appropriate. When the time comes each of us will need to deal with grief; and we’ll do it in our own way and in our own time. There is no “one size fits all” formula that can be applied because grief and its management is a personal response to a normal part of life. The best we can hope is that those around us at the time, take the idiosyncratic nature of the experience into account, and allow us the luxury of working through it, with their help.

This week I've been writing a Naming Day Ceremony for a local family. As I've been thinking about names and the role they play in our lives, it occurred to me that in choosing a first name parents are often trying to reflect their child's personality in the name. A parent said to me "I saw him and knew immediately what we should call him". Others take longer and weeks may go by as they seek the "best fit" name. It seems that second names are often used to honour a family member or friend; "It was always going to be Lindsay, boy or girl it didn't matter; we wanted to honour his grandfather". Now we come to the challenging decision, what family name do we use? Traditionalists would say the father's name, but why not the mother's; why not the two (mother's and father's in combination) and in our ever evolving world, how do we handle two fathers or two mothers? While we have everything up in the air, why don't we confuse the hell out of Genealogists and just choose a last name as randomly as we choose the others. Please no, as someone interested in family history I don't need any more challenges. It was confusing enough when my own father added an "e" to Clark. So like me take a moment this week to ponder where your names originated and if you don't know try to find out. You might also like to tell your own children, the reason they are named as they are. Let me know what you discover. Have a good one!