Handfasting

My fiance - who is not particularly religious - recently caved to my pestering and agreed to a Handfasting instead of a more "traditional" wedding ceremony. Now that the nagging has stopped, I have a more difficult task ahead of me: planning a ceremony that does not seriously offend my church-going relatives; most especially my uber-religious grandmother and her siblings. Luckily for me, one of my cousins is a Priestess and has already agreed to perform the ceremony/ritual for us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ashamed of my religious choices or the choices of my family, I just don't want anyone to have a heart attack or start screaming about how I'm a sinner and am going to hell on my wedding day. I've done some research online and read through a few books and most of them detail complicated rituals that likely make most of my friends and family very uncomfortable.

I was discussing this little dilemma with my cousin yesterday, and she came up with a solution I hadn't really thought of: for her, my fiance, and I to sit down and write a ceremony that works for us as a couple, but will not offend any of our non-Pagan guests.

We're going to wait until the wedding is a little closer before we have our first meeting, but at least we are headed in the right direction...ours.

Blessed Be