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Wedding Ceremony Forms and Styles. Which Is Best For You?

5/19/2018

How To' for Your I Do's from
Our Wedding Officiant's Blog

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Few couples know there are many forms and styles of wedding ceremonies. Below you'll find a helpful guide to the various ceremony forms and styles available. Explore the options and discover what best fits your nuptial fancies.
Need a bit more help? Request a Personal Online Tour and Ceremony Consultation with one of our Wedding Ministers.

You'll appreciate our warm, friendly and relaxed manner. With over thirty five years of experience of Wedding Officiating in South Central Kansas, you'll find your visit with us to be very enjoyable, helpful and very informative.
We know you have loads of questions and we are happy to address and assist you with each one. Enjoy the convenience and ease of our Personal Online Tour from the comfort of your home or office.
See You at the Altar,
Rev. Allie

Wedding Ceremonies, Forms and Styles.

Which ceremony form and style best fit’s your wedding desires and personalities?

Let’s begin to break it down by addressing the basics of each wedding form and style.

Ceremony Forms:

Traditional. These are typically faith-based and culled from the tradition the bride and groom were born into.

Non-denominational. A spiritual ceremony that includes reference to God, but does not adhere to any particular religious protocol.

Non-religious. Usually includes no reference to faith and typically does not mention God. (Some people call it a civil ceremony, but in fact a civil ceremony often mentions God).

Interfaith. This is a blending of two or more faiths, by including aspect of religion or religious rituals or readings that are symbolic of each faith.

Intercultural. This is a blending of cultures – such as a Filipino veil ceremony with a Chinese red string ritual and yet can certainly also blend religious aspects.

Any Ceremony Form, for the most part, may be applied to any Wedding Style.

What Are the Different Wedding Styles?

Black Tie, Formal, Informal, Casual and Elopement.
These are the terms used to dictate the level of formality, attire and ambiance of a wedding. Each style type plays an important part in the planning, direction and execution of your wedding as a whole.

Your preference will determine the ceremony style and direction, the reception, dining service, menu details and the capacity and ambiance of the wedding venue.

Of course, contingent on your personality styles, comfort zones and budget, each wedding style will have different levels of presentation, preparation and cost involved. When beginning to formulate your wedding plans it’s important to consider what you and your spouse-to-be will be most comfortable with.

The wedding style you select will also indicate what attire your wedding party and guests will wear. Everything about the wedding plans will hinge on your wedding’s overall level of style and level of formality, which should also be clearly indicated within your wedding invitations.

If you and your partner are usually on the casual side, then having a black tie wedding may not be comfortable fit for you. Then again, this is one time in your life when you may very well want to go all out, splurge and really crank up the formality and grandeur of your big day.
As you consider the elements of your wedding, strive to keep within the same level of formality and style throughout your wedding event so that entire day will flow with ease, grace and style.
Now, let’s take a look at what each wedding style typically entails.

Formal Black Tie

A Black Tie Style Wedding

Traditionally, black tie attire marks a very formal event — one that takes place in a grand hall, a house of worship or an upscale hotel, the reception provides an elaborate menu, beginning with cocktails and a full service dining staff. The reception is typically 200 Plus guests and a large wedding party. Black tie weddings don’t have to be in the evening. Your wedding can begin in the late afternoon and still be very formal. Brides and bridesmaids wear elegant, full-length gowns (with a full train and veil for the bride), and grooms and groomsmen wear traditional black tailcoats and pants, white stiff shirts with white ascot ties, black socks and shoes. The average wedding budget would be approximately $35,000.00 plus.

Formal

A Formal Style Wedding

A formal wedding is typically held in a house of worship or hotel, starts in the afternoon or evening, has a sit-down dinner or buffet at the reception and features at least 150 Plus guests. The budget would be around $25,000.00

The bride and groom each traditionally have between three and six attendants. The bride at a formal wedding wears a full-length gown with a sweep or chapel train, and a fingertip veil. Grooms and groomsmen wear tuxedos: black coats, black pants, white shirts, black vests and black ties. Bridesmaids match in full-length dresses.

Semi Formal

A Semi-formal Style Wedding

A semi-formal wedding can be held in a house of worship, but you can also have one in a home, an outdoor location or another spot. It traditionally starts in the afternoon, has a simple meal or refreshments at the reception, with a guests list of 100 Plus. Most budgets would range between $15,000.00 to $8,000.00.
The bride wears a full- or cocktail-length gown with a short train or no train at all and a fingertip veil. The groom and groomsmen wear matching tuxedos or dark suits, and bridesmaids wear matching full- or cocktail-length gowns.

Casual

The Casual Style Wedding

A casual wedding is usually held during the day in a hotel, home, garden or another location that isn’t a house of worship. It has a simple meal or refreshments at the reception and the guest list of 100.
The bride and groom typically have two to three attendants each.
This style of ceremony offers a good deal of flexibility both in presentation and budget. Budgets can be a little as $2,500 to $5,500.00 plus.

Informal brides may wear a knee- or cocktail-length wedding dress with no veil or anything from a pantsuit to a linen sundress. The men might wear suits and ties or shorts and flip-flops, depending on the occasion.

Simple

The Simple Wedding

This Wedding Style generally consist of gatherings of 75 to 100 guests. Wedding Budgets would range from $1,000.00 to $2,500.00.
The ceremony style is very relaxed and casual. No rehearsal is necessary for this comfy cozy informal wedding style. This ceremony style is most popular for Second Marriages, Blended Family Weddings, Theme Weddings and Vow Renewal Celebrations. It's a lovely, heart warming, casual ceremony style that is very well suited for homes, gardens, parks, hotels.

Mini Wedding

Mini Wedding
This lovely little "Just Marry Us" style ceremony is perfect for small intimate gatherings of 35 guests or less.
A Simply Sweet Short Ceremony, no rehearsal necessary. Your budget would be about $250.00 to $500.00.

Elopement

Elopement Ceremony

A romantic little ceremony with 2 to 20 guests.
A Simply Perfect Little Romantic Elopement.
Just right for B&B's, hotels, homes or parks.
There are several wonderful ceremony locations we can suggest to you.
Wedding Budgets would range from $295.00 to $595.00.

Copyright © 2013 My Life's Precious Vows and Celebrations

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Ceremony Music

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Live Ceremony Music Suggestions.
To help you on your way to exceptional live music choices, here are my favorite Live Music Vendors, all tried and true. Visit the links provided below to listen to samples of their music.

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Four Key Elements to an Amazing Wedding Ceremony.

2/15/2017

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Wedding Ceremony Considerations.

As you contemplate your wedding plans and ceremony, you'll have much to consider.

To avoid spiraling into wedding option overload, aka Wedding Crazies, here are some helpful tips that will assist you with your decision making process and shed some light on the way to a more enjoyable and truly rewarding experience.

Consider this, planning a wedding together is much like a marriage on training wheels. The nature of what the two of you will experience while planning the wedding will prove to be very revealing, and to the wise, offer keen opportunities for you to learn, grow and hone in on the development of your marriage skills. In truth, it's a snap shot of how well you will work together within your marriage and the years beyond.

Contemplating Your Shared Love and
the Core Values of What Your
Marriage Journey is About?

Tip One:
Know Thyself: Who are you and what are you about?
Focus on your truest nature as opposed to popular wedding trends.
What are you about as a couple?
What's the foundation of your relationship, what is most important to you, what are your shared values, what are you creating together and where are you going together?
What characterizes your sacred journey as husband and wife?
This is key in creating your wedding ceremony plans.
If you can stay true to yourselves as a couple, the perfect path forward will make itself known clearly.

Use Your Heart's Inspiration,
Keep it Simple and True. Love isn't Complicated.

Tip Two:
Think with your heart.
Consider how you desire to experience and feel in the moment of your vow exchange and union.

The exchange of your vows is no less than the flag stone and foundation of your marriage. As such, it deserves thoughtful reflection from the mind of your heart. This is not to say a couple needs to labor or fret over the wording of the vows. Rather, it's about capturing precisely the nature of the love you share. To the surprise of many wedding couples, this doesn't require pages of verbiage and readings to convey. This does require, however, a very skillful and knowledgeable professional. Your Wedding Minister / Officiant will prove to be most helpful in this area.
We offer online vow consultations and counseling to assist, guide and connect you to your truest and most natural essence which will enable to create, with our assistance, the vows that truly express who you are as a couple and the true nature of your sacred journey as husband and wife. This is a most rewarding and enlightening undertaking. One which will serve you both very well in the many years to come.

Stay True to Yourselves, Only the Two of You Know the Depth of Your Hearts.

Tip Three:
Avoid the expectations of others and the ever changing commercial wedding trends. While such things offer near endless options and ideas, one can quickly get off track with their personal wedding plan focus within the plethora of possibilities. After all, you aren't buying a pair of trendy shoes are you...no...this is far more than that. Hold fast to your true intimate essential nature as a wedding couple, as this is very essence of your path forward as husband and wife.

By remaining dedicated to your deepest intentions, you'll find what is right for the two of you will surface naturally.

Observation and Guiding vs
Controlling and Managing.

Tip Four:
The more relaxed and natural the ceremony and gathering is...the more natural beauty will derive in and of it's own.
Trust yourself and each other. Know that it's impossible to think out and control each and every detail of your wedding. To try to do so is actually counter productive and creates great strife within the wedding process, which bleeds chaotic energy into the event, each other and ultimately the ceremony and reception.

This unfortunate mistake presents itself when the couple focuses too much of their attention on the outward appearances rather than the inward heart centered creation taking place.

What very few think about or truly understand:
Wedding Ceremonies are in fact a form of living energy, in which you are both within the very moment of your vows, giving life to.
If you consider this concept, it's huge!
It literally maps your marriage journey into the future together.
As such, it is indeed a living energy which is being brought forward into your personal reality to take form and live. This newly formed creation is the foundation of your marriage. It lives as an extension of each of you and will strengthen, grow and develop in accordance with the quality of care and attention each of you place into it. Try stepping back, become the neutral observer, note what is taking form, experiment with guidance vs control. An open heart will enable an open mind.

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Wedding Ceremony Forms and Styles. Which Is Best For You?

How To' for Your I Do's from
Our Wedding Officiant's Blog

Wedding Ceremonies, Forms and Styles.

Formal Black Tie

Formal

Semi Formal

Casual

Simple

Mini Wedding

Elopement

Ceremony Music

Four Key Elements to an Amazing Wedding Ceremony.

Wedding Ceremony Considerations.

Contemplating Your Shared Love and
the Core Values of What Your
Marriage Journey is About?

Use Your Heart's Inspiration,
Keep it Simple and True. Love isn't Complicated.

Stay True to Yourselves, Only the Two of You Know the Depth of Your Hearts.

Observation and Guiding vs
Controlling and Managing.

Life's Precious Vows Ceremonies

Classic Kansas
Traditional Fireside Ceremonies.

Summer Sunset Ceremonies
by the River 2021
Taking Reservations Now!

How To' for
Your I Do's

Beautiful & Affordable Outdoor Elopements and
Small Weddings

Spring, Summer, Fall Specials
2021
Elopements Starting at $135
____
Micro Weddings
$195
-----
Mini Weddings
$245

Explore All Venue Suggestions

Starting Your Journey Together as
Husband & Wife

Truths About Weddings You Won’t Read In Etiquette Books

Family Values
Talking Points Before You Marry

Blog Roll

Life's Precious Vows Wedding Blog

Archives

Wedding Ceremonies, Forms and Styles.

Formal Black Tie

Formal

Semi Formal

Casual

Simple

Mini Wedding

Elopement

Ceremony Music

Wedding Ceremony Considerations.

Contemplating Your Shared Love andthe Core Values of What YourMarriage Journey is About?

Use Your Heart's Inspiration, Keep it Simple and True. Love isn't Complicated.

Stay True to Yourselves, Only the Two of You Know the Depth of Your Hearts.

Observation and Guiding vsControlling and Managing.

Life's Precious Vows Ceremonies

Beautiful & Affordable Outdoor Elopements andSmall Weddings

Spring, Summer, Fall Specials 2021Elopements Starting at $135____Micro Weddings$195-----Mini Weddings$245

Starting Your Journey Together asHusband & Wife

Blog Roll

Life's Precious Vows Wedding Blog

Archives

Contemplating Your Shared Love and
the Core Values of What Your
Marriage Journey is About?

Use Your Heart's Inspiration,
Keep it Simple and True. Love isn't Complicated.

Observation and Guiding vs
Controlling and Managing.

Beautiful & Affordable Outdoor Elopements and
Small Weddings

Spring, Summer, Fall Specials
2021
Elopements Starting at $135
____
Micro Weddings
$195
-----
Mini Weddings
$245

Starting Your Journey Together as
Husband & Wife