THE FLOWER CEREMONY

The essence of this ceremony is communicating unity and support for the marriage. It may also powerfully pull together fragmented and/or blended families.

Appropriately position a open necked vase large enough to easily accommodate all flowers involved. The vase should be easily accessible without obstructing movement of ceremony participants.

With smaller congregations each attendee can be given a flower to place in the vase as they enter. These should be single colour, perhaps white, to serve as a backdrop for coloured flowers to be placed along the inner edge by key family and the couple.

Congregational participation with flowers may be left out in larger congregations, or where drawing them into an active public symbol of support is not desired.

If there is some resistance in parents or others they might be included in this open symbol of support in hopes of reducing this resistance.

If it is a blending of two families with children, each child could carry a flower forward to be placed in the vase, along with those of the couple.

The couple each carry forward a flower to be placed in the vase. These should be large, bold and colourful flowers.

The beauty of this ceremony is its communication of unity by action as the ceremony begins, and that without the necessity of words to explain it.

As a follow through, if children in a blended family are assembled with the couple at the front, they might be asked about committing themselves to love and respect their new married parents with words reminiscent of wedding vows.

Parents might also be asked to stand to be honoured and brought into expressing their support of the new union.