Who Would Have Thought That "Unity" Would Keep Me Up At Night?

My big project over the last couple of day has been to put together a draft of our ceremony script. I wanted/needed to do this so that I can figure out if I need to identify certain elements of the ceremony in our programs (which I'd love to start working on).



I started out by printing out a number of different ceremony scripts I've found online, through the blogosphere (much thanks to A Cupcake Wedding... many of my "starred" google reader posts are her's), and a ceremony written for an old friend last year. Then Jacob and I went through separately and highlighted the elements that we each liked. THEN I sat down, typed up all the different elements and tried to piece them together so that they would make sense as one solid script.



Most of it was pretty simple. A little re-wording was needed here and there to make it flow, but, for the most part, it worked out well. HOWEVER the unity sand ceremony became the bane of my existence last night.



I do NOT like many of the scripts that I found for sand ceremonies. They all said something along the lines of "as the couple pours the sand into one vessel, their lives as individuals will cease to exist". I am NOT ok with this. I don't believe that our individual lives SHOULD "cease to exist". We are who we are BECAUSE of the lives we have led as individuals. I love Jacob and he loves me because of the individual choices, views and beliefs that we each have.



I don't think that when you get married you need to completely lose your individual lives... but rather create an ADDITIONAL life together. As with any relationship I think it's going to be important that we hold on to our separate-ness in some ways. I NEED to have a life outside of my relationship. It will keep me sane when there is stress at home... plus it allows a different part of "me" to present itself to the world every now and then. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not going to "hide" my outside-life from my partner. He knows my friends, he's met many of my co-workers, he knows about the different social organizations that I participate in... but he also knows (as do I) that sometimes we need a little time apart.



I have been in relationships in the past where I didn't know the people my partner was spending his time with, and I didn't always know where he was on a particular evening... and that is NOT a healthy relationship. However, if Jacob is spending time with Friend A going out to see "Clash of the Titans" (or some other boy-movie that I'm not particularly interested in seeing), good for him. I hope he has fun. I'll be out dancing with my girls or at my monthly book club meeting! We'll catch up in the morning.



I was up well past my bedtime last night trying to come up with a "unity" ceremony script that honored these views and still expressed the desire to be "one". I was ready to just ditch the whole thing... but Jacob really wants to do the sand ceremony. So... this is what I came up with. Thoughts?

Today Jacob and Brittney have made vows to each other to unify their lives and to move forward in their adventures as one. These two bottles of sand symbolize their lives before this moment. Each grain of sand in their separate containers represents a unique and separate moment, decision, feeling or event that helped to shape them into the unique individuals that they are today.

*Pour sand*

As the couple pours their separate bottles of sand into one common vessel, they are symbolizing the merging of their two lives into one. One life that will be strengthened and solidified by the unique, individual grains of sand that each partner brings with them, and the lessons learned from these life experiences.

From this moment forward, like the sand, your lives will never be the same. Your hearts and souls are forever blended, and, as with the grains of sand, they can never be separated into their individual containers again.