Stop Googling 'Best vows, ceremonies, unity rituals' for the best wedding ceremony.

The number one thing to do when personalizing your ceremony is....look inward and not outward.

Googling 'best marriage vows/ceremonies/unity rituals' can be overwhelming and often you will read general ideas that will distract you and take you away into someone else's version of what love, marriage, or relationships mean. Your ceremony is not out there somewhere, its inside of the two of you.

Check out the link on how to make your ceremony more personal, and use this approach to navigate your process:

First - Play the video's on vow writing. Do this while you are making dinner, washing dishes, folding laundry, or on a lunch break at work.

The video's will get your brain juices going about your relationship - the core of everything that goes into a ceremony.

Honestly, couples who have listened to them tend to have REALLY long vows because so much content comes up for them. Material will come out of this for you that you will not want to add to the vows themselves, but it will be good content for me to add to the welcome message and other sections to make each section meaningful. Feel free to add bits and pieces to the word document I send you. Your ceremony is a living document, a draft you can dump information into, and I can clean up for you!

Second - Listen to music, read, and watch movies.

I often say, when your dishwasher breaks down, you have no idea where to go buy one. Once you've made your purchase, you will see dishwasher's on sale everywhere for years to come! This is similar to hearing messages on love and commitment that are all around us in our everyday world. Now that you are taking the journey of packaging your thoughts and feelings into a ceremony, you're mind will open up to how to put your feelings into words and you will start to hear and see these messages everywhere.You might use some of these tidbits for your vows, or even for a reading.

If you feel like you are struggling, these activities relax you when you feel overwhelmed, and give you a guilt-free excuse to 'take a break' from wedding planning. That's right, go to a concert or do a Netflix binge, for the sake of your ceremony. That's an order!

Third - Look around your home(s) and consider what is unique to the two of you. What activities, passions, interests, have drawn to the two of you together? The link on 3 tips on making your ceremony more personal has a 'fill in the blank' option that gives you a nice way of summarizing those common interests for the welcome message. You may also want to add an addition unity ceremony to acknowledge that common interest. For example, I had a couple who loved games and Lego. As an additional unity ceremony (the first one being rings of course!) they took a moment during the ceremony to attach their custom made Lego figures (you can buy them on Etsy) onto a frame that had their wedding date inscribed. I've done this with wine, paint, sand, food, etc. If these types of unity ceremony ideas interest you...

Fourth - Subscribe to this blog. Every Wednesday, I blog a new type of unity ceremony and post about the cool concepts that people have come up with. There are plenty of past blogs in there that speak to unity ideas, but also provide different ways to speak to love or messages about the rings.

Fifth and final - Pick my brain. Call me. Email me.

I love, love, love getting creative with different types of ceremonies or rituals within ceremonies. There is so much out there though, that I will be able to help you with the best options once you've reflected inward on what brings the two of you together, what you're comfortable with sharing about yourselves during the ceremony, and how creative you wish to be in demonstrating those desires, so my ideas for you will be meaningful, authentic, and true to you.