Ideas Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Silver Bee Ceremonies

Creating Your Own Small and Intimate Wedding

A big wedding with hundreds of guests isn’t everyone’s idea of a perfect wedding day. If that thought fills you with dread then a small and intimate wedding, or minimony as I’ve heard it called, might be just the thing. But how do you create a wedding like this and would it work for you?

Managing your guest list

Well let’s start by breaking it right down to basics… who are your show stoppers? Whose absence would stop you from having your wedding day? Really. There aren’t many couples who would come up with an honest list of over 30 people, and it gives you an opportunity to think about what’s really important too. Your wedding day is about the two of you committing to spend your lives together, it’s the promises you make to each other in the company of your nearest and dearest, if you’d like them to be part of your day.

Choosing a small wedding takes the pressure off having a ‘big do’ and moves it away from being all about the numbers. Your wedding day then moves into a really special place where you can enjoy being in the moment with the few people who are the most precious to you. And if your partner is pining for an evening do of tearing up the dance floor with one hundred of their best mates then throw a separate party that your parents won’t have to endure!

Making your wedding ceremony intimate

That’s your guest list sorted for your small and intimate wedding, so on to the ceremony itself. Having a just few close friends and family at your wedding allows everyone to be involved in your ceremony if you’d like them to be. You could seat all your guests in a horseshoe style layout so everyone is on the front row, it’s going to be intimate so expect emotions to be running high! A ring warming ceremony is great for small numbers; each person holds the rings in their hands and infuses them with their love and wishes for you both and by the time the rings have been round all of your guests they are ‘warmed’ with all that love.

Your celebrant could gather wishes or anecdotes from each of your guests before the ceremony and weave these in to the service, which would add a fab surprise element to the ceremony for you both. Those of your guests who are comfortable with public speaking could share readings or poems with you all, and you could ask everyone present to sign your wedding certificate as your witnesses with their own pens. You can still have a confetti moment at the end of your ceremony with everyone making a walkway for you both.

Reception ideas

With a small and intimate wedding reception you can truly enjoy spending quality time and having fun with all of your guests, and there a whole heap of games you could choose from. It would be great to hear from all of your guests at your wedding reception with each of them telling a short anecdote or story about the two of you, or sharing a message you’d sent some years ago when you announced that you’ve finally met ‘the one’!

Lots of venues have smaller spaces that work just perfectly for small and intimate weddings such as the stylish Bingham in Richmond on the banks of the Thames or the stunning Pennyhill Park in Camberley, Surrey, and with all the money you’ll be saving you can splash out and really treat everyone or just save yourself the enormous bank loan.

If you’d like to find out more about planning your celebrant led wedding, visit my weddings page for lots of inspo or give me a call on 07786 268446.

Arranging a Memorial Service

The pandemic back in 2020 changed lots things about our lives, and introduced us to the idea of direct cremation. This means that you don’t have a service in a crematorium and your loved one is simply cremated, and you can then choose to celebrate their live with a memorial service. But how do you go about arranging a memorial service?

There is no right or wrong way to arrange a memorial service for someone you have loved, most of all you want to make it a celebration of their life and to reflect what was important to them. So here are a few suggestions on what you may need to consider to help you plan a personal and fitting memorial service.

Where should this be held?

Your memorial service can take anywhere you choose, so think about the places where your loved one enjoyed spending time and consider any of these for your memorial. Maybe at their golf club in one of the function rooms, their favourite pub, the day centre where they enjoyed meeting friends or at a natural beauty spot they loved such as in the grounds of Polesden Lacey in Bookham, Surrey or Richmond Park in London.

Any of these types of venue will help with catering and will probably be able to provide any audio visual equipment you might want for music or photos too. And they are great when you’re expecting lots of people. But if you are thinking of something more intimate you could always have the service at home, or at the remembrance gardens of your local crematoria and incorporate placing a memorial stone or planting a rose bush into your time together.

If they loved spending time in nature why not consider something outdoors along the banks of the Thames or at a venue such as Clandon Wood Nature Reserve in West Clandon, Surrey?

When is the right time?

Once again there is no right answer for this. You might decide that you’d like to arrange the memorial for a few months after the funeral or you may prefer to wait and hold this on the anniversary of their death but generally I would recommend you make it within six months.

Funerals are traditionally held on weekdays but your memorial can be any day of the week so if you’ve got lots of people attending who are generally working during the week you could hold the celebration on a weekend instead. Depending on the type of refreshments you’d like to offer guests you could time the service for early afternoon so everyone could share in afternoon tea and a glass of fizz, or maybe the person you are remembering loved a fish and chip supper, in which case a late afternoon service followed by fish and chips and a few drinks would be fab!

Although there are no time restrictions in the same way as there are for a funeral service, it’s best to set a time limit on the memorial. Two hours is about right but if the celebration is in full swing and people want to move on elsewhere after that time then all well and good.

What should the memorial include?

Your memorial service doesn’t have to have any formal elements, it could just be a party to celebrate the life of your loved one – and if they enjoyed a good party then why not?! But you may like to have some structure to the time you are spending together and there are lots of different ways you can do this from a full service led by a celebrant to some of your guests sharing their memories and favourite photos.

A celebrant led service might include any of the items listed below and is best held at the beginning of your memorial for up to 30 minutes, with time to socialise afterwards:

Words of welcome
Thoughts on life and death
Poems or readings
Music chosen in memory of your loved one
Eulogy
Tributes from family and friends
Quiet reflection or a symbolic gesture such as lighting a candle
Closing words and toast

You can also include visual tributes such as electronic photos projected onto a screen, prints placed on a large board or dotted around the room, or some video footage of your loved one if you are lucky enough to have this.

I hope this gives you a few pointers on how to create a fitting memorial service for your loved one. If you’d like me deliver the service for you, or you’d like to talk though some ideas please drop me a line at stephanie@silverbeeceremonies.co.uk or give me a call on 07786 268446.

Handfasting Explained

A handfasting brings visual intrigue to your wedding ceremony, and for many of your guests it will be the first time they have seen this ancient tradition.

If you step way back in time to 12^th Century, handfasting was part of every marriage and the couple’s hands were bound together using ribbons or cord. This is where the age old phrases of tying the knot and binding agreement originated, and today there are plenty of modern twists on this very special symbolic act. My favourite options are the Celtic Love Knot and what I like to call the Ribbon of Promises. Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail…

Celtic Love Knot

The Celtic love knot involves the bride and groom clasping their right hands together, with pulse points touching, and two ribbons are wrapped around their hands to bind them together. I then like to say a hand blessing, describing how these are the hands of the person who will love you and hold you, and wipe away the tears of happiness as well as sadness, and still be reaching for your hand when you are old and grey. Once the blessing is complete, the couple pull their hands from the ribbons holding onto the ends and a Celtic Love Knot is created to bring the two ribbons together.

Sarah and Andy married at The Humble Grape in London where we used four different coloured ribbons for the Celtic Love Knot. The colours for each of the ribbons were chosen by school friends of the bride for their symbolism such as green for honesty and independence and indigo for trust and respect. Each of the friends bound their chosen ribbons around the couple’s hands and explained their symbolism; it was a really special and somewhat emotional part of the ceremony!

handfasting-ceremony — Courtesy of NickRayPhotography.co.uk

Ribbon of Promises

If you would like to involve close family or friends in your wedding ceremony then the Ribbon of Promises is a great option. I love to include it when existing families are coming together and the children of the bride and/or groom make the bindings. In this version of a handfasting ceremony the couple clasp their right hands together, once again with pulse points touching, and a ribbon is placed under the thumb of each. The ribbons are then gradually wrapped around the couple’s hands as they make promises to each other. After each promise, the ribbons are passed over their hands and a knot is tied underneath, this is repeated for each promise – four times is perfect. The groom then holds the ribbons where the final knot has been made and the couple both pull their hands away for the ribbons to create a chain where the knots have been made after each promise. As well as making those close to you a special part of the ceremony, it’s a bit of theatre for your guests too!

Shelley and Emma had a small registry office wedding in the early afternoon followed by a surprise handfasting ceremony for a much larger group of family and friends, who thought they were just attending the wedding breakfast upstairs at The Joker in Brighton. Shelley’s daughters bound their mums’ hands as they made promises to each other and to their daughters, a really lovely moment in their day.

So there you have it, my brief guide to including a handfasting as part of your wedding ceremony. You can read more about my wedding services on my wedding ceremonies page, or drop me a line at stephanie@silverbeeceremonies.co.uk if you’d like to find out more.

Are Virtual Ceremonies and Celebrations for You?

Lockdown has certainly made us more aware of connecting with our friends and family virtually – sharing dinner, quiz nights, and fun online – and this is something that we may well see playing a much larger role in celebrations and ceremonies going forward.

People have been taking part in virtual wedding ceremonies and live streaming funeral services to those who would ordinarily be there in person. No-one wants to miss these important life events, and we still need to celebrate the special moments in our lives, maybe now more than ever.

Virtual wedding ceremonies or funeral ceremonies are not for everyone but there are alternatives that mean you could still be part of these special moments with offerings like that from The Video Message Company. I love the idea that with their help you can create video messages for people anywhere. You just need to send your videos and messages that you’ve shot on your mobile, other photos you may have, a few details about the person or couple you are celebrating, and their favourite music and they pull it all together into a professional video!

It’s such a great way to surprise a wedding couple, maybe to cheer them up as their big day gets shelved, or to send a personal message to a member of your family or close friend you haven’t seen for 8 weeks and counting. And once we’re through with social distancing, it’s a perfect way to still be part of a wedding or naming ceremony if you can’t be there in person.

Later this year we’ll be seeing lots of memorial services taking place to truly celebrate those who have died in recent months and a video message could be a lovely addition to memorial services, with messages to the family and anecdotes about the person being celebrated. I’m looking forward to embracing such fun and heartwarming technology into my ceremonies!

But if you’d rather wait until everyone can be together in person, that’s fine too, I’ll be here to help you celebrate when the time comes.

Find out more about The Video Message Company here: https://thevideomessagecompany.com/

Involving family and friends in your wedding ceremony

There are plenty of ways of involving family and friends in your wedding ceremony so they feel part of your special celebration. Here’s a snap shot of some new ideas and those which are steeped in history but with a modern twist…

Having your Dad ‘give you away’ may seem like a thing of the past. But many Dads still like the idea of walking their daughter up the aisle – and you might like Dad’s supporting arm too! Dad can give a commitment, rather than giving you away. This could be bestowing his love and warmth on to you as a couple and wishing you every happiness in your journey through life together

Couples often have divided opinions on including songs during wedding ceremonies for all your guests to join in, but this can be a real winner. Arrange it karaoke style so you have the song playing for everyone to sing a long to, with song sheets provided. Pick an easy song that everyone will know and prime those guests beforehand who you know will enjoy getting involved

Ceremonial fires are fab for woodland/festival vibe weddings and can provide a special closing feature to your ceremony. You and your partner are passed flaming torches and you walk around your prepared unlit fire. Words from your celebrant are optional here. Then you light the fire and invite your guests to add a wooden disc with your initials stamped on to the flames, making a wish for the two of you as they do so. Thanks to Tash and Laurence for the inspiration for this one!

A ring warming ceremony is a great way of involving all your guests, assuming you are exchanging wedding rings. Your celebrant will introduce the concept of the ring warming ceremony and ask for the rings to be passed amongst all guests. Each guest takes the rings in their hand and privately bestows a wish or their love onto the rings. Once they have been around all guests the rings are warmed ready for your ring exchange

Readings and poems can create real poignant moments in your ceremony, or add a bit of fun, depending on the reading selected. Asking the person giving the reading to select something of their choice works well. They will read something they are comfortable with and they have chosen for you. Two or three readings incorporated into your ceremony is just right

I like to ask guests to make a declaration as part of the ceremonies I deliver. This will come towards the end of the ceremony and guests can either respond ‘We do’ to a question asked, or read together a short declaration from a printed sheet. They are giving their commitment to support you both as active friends and families in your future lives

Hand fasting ceremony, humanist wedding, symbolic wedding gestures, sand blending — Hand fasting ceremony

If you would like to involve a small number of close family members in your wedding ceremony, maybe children or your siblings, you might want to consider hand fasting or sand blending. These symbolic gestures, which can involve you making promises to each other and your family, have great visual impact and provide keepsakes of your day. Find out more about these in my symbolic gestures blog

A candle ceremony can be a gorgeous way of involving family and friends in your wedding ceremony towards the end of the service. Everyone is given a small candle when they take their seats for the ceremony. When the time comes, the celebrant lights the candle of the first guest, they in turn light the candle of the next guest and so on. Once all of the guest candles have been lit the last person comes up to light a single unity candle for the happy couple. Guests then form a lighted walk way for the couple to pass through. Fab for evening weddings.

I hope this gives you some inspiration for making those closest to you feel part of your big moment.

10 Reasons to Choose a Humanist Wedding

A Humanist wedding is great for so many reasons, here are my top 10 of the moment:

You can get married anywhere you like, assuming you have the landowner’s permission. So think beach, woodland, your favourite restaurant or even at home
The words for your ceremony can be created to say just what you want to, there are no rules here!
Select a memorable symbolic ceremony. There’s plenty to choose from – hand fasting, sand blending and broom jumping. Or keep it traditional with an exchange of rings and hand blessing
If you’d like to involve those close to you such as children or friends in your ceremony we can provide ideas on the best way to do this
We love same sex marriages!
You can have a humanist wedding in a licensed venue. Do the legal bit then get personal with a humanist marriage ceremony afterwards
If your partner’s family has a different belief or religion to your own, a humanist wedding ceremony offers a religious-neutral solution
Your ceremony can be as unique as you are from your vows and readings through to your closing music
All celebrants are fully accredited by Humanists UK and have been through rigorous training. Quality comes as standard – no question
Us humanists believe in being kind to others, and the planet, and treating everyone well. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone marry you with those values?

Let me know your reasons for choosing a humanist wedding celebration at stephanie@silverbeeceremonies.co.uk. Find out more about my ceremonies on my wedding page and check out the latest stories and blogs about humanist weddings from Humanists UK.