How To Write A Nonreligious Wedding Ceremony Script
Photo credit: Nadeen Sparks
Couples often send us their self-written ceremony drafts to show us what they have come up with on their own. Professional officiants sometimes do the same. Sadly there’s often not too much difference between an amateur couple, “first time trying to write a ceremony” script, and a working officiant script. And we’re talking about nonreligious, nondenominational and nontraditional humanist and universalist officiants, and even certified celebrants. What we usually see is this very abstract and ungrounded, cheesy and cliche, poorly structured content, with a religious and/or Disney undertone. “You’re my always-forever-eternal-and-undying-love-is-patient-love-is-kind.”
“I don’t really think this is on the table, but if I hear 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 (Love is patient, love is kind) at our wedding I will scream.” —Wedding Photographer & Bride
The language is so formal - meaning no one actually speaks that way. It feels like a “plug and play” formula, a Mad Libsy, fill in the blank, generic template. So many nondenominational and non-religious ceremonies are super short and feel like they are just checking a box. They tend to contain a lot of “gimmickyness,” and lack the sense of occasion and gravitas that a wedding ceremony should have.
Here’s an example of what we DON’T do:
“I give you this flower as a symbol of my love for you. It began as a tiny, tightly closed bud and blossomed into this perfect flower that opened with the warmth of the sun, just as my love for you has grown in the warmth of your heart.”
Even though our pre-written ceremony scripts were written for a broader audience, we created these ceremony scripts to feel deeply personal, as if they were written just for you. We went out of our way to avoid gimmicks and cliches and the same artificial and ubiquitous content you find online when you Google “how to write a wedding ceremony,” or “what to include in a wedding ceremony.”
So, how do you, as a lay person — who is probably really good at lots of other things — write a great nonreligious wedding ceremony script? You don’t! You buy one of ours, and then maybe personalize it using our super thoughtful and thorough resources and customization tips.
Ceremony matters. How you approach it matters, how you structure it matters, how you talk about love and marriage and relationships in a ceremony matters. And all of our wedding and elopement ceremony scripts are reflective of that truth.