Here's a basic format for a wedding or handfasting ritual. It is intended as a "jumping off point" for couples planning their own ceremonies. The only thing listed which is vital to a marriage ceremony is the exchange of vows. Every other part of the ceremony is there as a backdrop to the oath taking - to put the bride, groom, and guests in the right frame of mind, and is therefore optional. In the description of ritual elements below I have purposefully left unclear "who should do what". The term "celebrant" as used below is meant to be an all-purpose term for someone who executes a ritual action and could equally well refer to "clergy", to the bride or groom themselves, or to a friend or relative asked to perform a particular task during the ceremony. There are no rules here. These are only suggestions.
Gathering
Chances are you've asked your loved ones to
assemble for your nuptials at a less than exact time and
place. Regardless of whether you are out on a green or inside
a hall, they'll be milling about and gossiping at the
time you chose to begin the ceremony. Hence the need to use
some dramatic gesture to get everyone's attention focused
on the wedding! You might choose to appoint someone to blow a
horn, bang a gong, ring a bell, shoot off a rifle, etc. Or
you can use the old Christian church ploy of starting music
playing in the background. For some cryptic reason "dum,
dum, da-dum" has the effect of pointing wedding guests
in the right direction. (If you do use music, use something
meaningful to you.) If the guests are expected to participate
in the ceremony in any way, however simple, now would be a
good time to state what they should do and when. Even if the
ceremony requires no guest involvement, you may wish to
provide them with a quick overview so that they have some
idea what to expect.
Hallowing
Churches and temples are pre-designated as holy
spaces. If you are holding your wedding in some other venue
(for instance, a grove, hilltop, or alehouse) you may wish to
make a point of hallowing the space in which your wedding
will take place. If done competently and sincerely, the
hallowing will have the following results:
a) The space will be cleared of any negative
influences.
b) The space will attract to it any energies or
spirits that are in favour of the wedding.
c) The folk assembled, regardless of their personal
beliefs, will feel that they are somewhere special.
Most pagan religions have customary ways of sanctifying an
area, but you may wish to create and perform your own
original hallowing ceremony - which can be as simple or
elaborate as you like. For example, in preparation for an
outdoor wedding, you could stick garden torches/ground
flares/braziers into the earth in regular intervals around
the area in which the wedding ritual will take place. During
the hallowing phase, a celebrant could walk round the
perimeter with a lit taper, setting fire to each. After
lighting the last one, the celebrant could declare that the
area within is protected by holy flames. Alternatively, a
celebrant could silently carry a burning censor around the
perimeter of the space, letting the fragrance speak for
itself. Then again, if you had an exceptionally carefree
group of friends and relatives who were children of the
60's, you might even persuade them to do something like
hold hands, dance in a circle round the holy space, and sing
a song about peace and love.
Processional
It's often a good idea to have people enter the
hallowed space in a ceremonial way - this builds anticipation
and gets everyone in a festive mood. If the wedding is
outdoors, it's traditional to set up some sort of archway
through which the procession can pass. This could be anything
from a rose-covered trellis to two people standing with
ceremonial spears held up and crossed overhead. If the
ceremony is indoors, it's traditional for the
processional to start in another room or another floor and
enter the wedding space through a doorway or stairway. Just
who participates in the processional depends on the number of
guests and the size of the venue. Outdoors in an open field,
you could have the celebrants lead all the guests to the
wedding site from a point starting a few hundred yards away.
This procession could involve music, drumming, or chanting.
Indoors, in a limited space, such a large procession may not
be practical. In this case you might want to have the guests
already seated when the bride, groom, and those people
participating in the wedding ritual process into the
room.
Announcement
The Christian version of the announcement is usually
something like: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here
today to witness the joining of John and Mary in holy
wedlock." This formula is easily varied to something
like, "Friends, kin, and loved ones, we are here to
rejoice in the handfasting of Bridget and Fergus".
Besides weeding out those members of the audience who thought
they'd shown up for a Wurzel's concert, the
announcement allows all wedding guests a few moments to
psychologically prepare for the imminent ceremony.
Invocations
If the bride and groom are secular humanists, they
will of course skip this step. If they belong to a pagan
religion, they will probably have a clear idea of who they
want to invoke and how to go about it. If your beliefs lie
somewhere in between, you may wish to invite the spirits of
the land or the ancestral spirits of both families to bear
witness to your oaths and share in the joyous occasion. You
may wish to make an offering to them. For example, you could
sprinkle some mead or wine around the wedding site while
asking for their blessing.
A word of warning here for novice pagans. Many printed handfasting rituals include invocations to particular gods and goddesses. I strongly advise against calling upon any deity during your wedding ritual with whom you do not already have a close personal relationship. Avoid the temptation to invoke a goddess by name just because you read about her in a book and she sounded cool. If you wouldn't invite a person you didn't know to your wedding because they might behave unpredictably, then it only makes sense to extend that caution to deities you don't know - whose unpredictability factor is notably higher!
Declaration of Intention to be Wed
The couple may wish to plan for a celebrant to
formally question their intent at this point in the ceremony.
Something along the lines of, "Do you, Fergus, freely
take this woman as your wife..." Alternatively, the
bride and groom may each wish to make some sort of speech,
listing all the wonderful qualities their partner possesses
and explaining why they wish to be bonded to her or him. The
speech could be directed at the guests ("Bridget is the
woman of my dreams...") or it could be directed at the
partner ("Bridget, you are the woman of my
dreams...") and witnessed by the guests. There's a
lot of room for improvisation here. The speech can be short
or long; spontaneous, memorised, or read; poetry or prose.
All that matters is that it end in some declaration of intent
to enter into a formal commitment.
Vows
Once again, the couple have many choices. A
celebrant can read the vows to be repeated by bride and
groom, as per a mainstream secular or church wedding; or the
bride and groom can each read their own vows to each other.
If the couple choose the former option, they should keep in
mind that they are making vows to each other, not to the
celebrant! As they repeat the words the celebrant says, they
should keep their gaze on their partner. (I've been to
Christian weddings where, when taking their vows, the bride
and groom seemed to be constantly seeking feedback from the
priest to ensure them they got the words right, and appeared
to have no interest in communicating those words to their
future spouse.)
A couple who have practice in memorising and performing lines, and who are completely comfortable and confident in doing so, may wish to speak their vows from memory. I would not recommend this for most people, since strong emotions can easily get in the way of the word-retrieval process and any fear of screwing up you lines will almost certainly result in your doing so. I recommend that you invest in some quality parchment paper and write out the vows in calligraphy (or print them in a graceful font). Practice saying them to the point where you have them reasonably well memorised and need only refer to the paper when you need a prompt. Don't read aloud from the piece of paper. Glance down at a line to make sure you remember it then look up at your partner to speak it.
The exchange of rings generally takes place as part of the exchange of vows. For example, the groom says all his vows, then puts a ring on the bride's finger; then the bride says all her vows and puts a ring on the groom's finger. Alternatively, both partners could speak their vows before exchanging rings with a declaration along the lines of "with this ring I thee wed."
A symbolic display of the bond forming between the couple may also be part of the oath taking ceremony. It is common in Neo-Pagan handfastings for an celebrant to tie together the hands (one each) of the bride and groom with a cord before they take their vows and untie them after they are wed. Similarly, the bride and groom could each hold candles while taking their vows and afterwards use these to simultaneously light a third, larger candle to represent their union. The meaning of the symbolism should be explained to the guests if it involves anything which might not be immediately obvious to everyone present.
Declaration of Marriage
The actual declaration of marriage can occur as
rings are exchanged, knots are untied, or a candle is lit.
The declaration doesn't have to take the form of a
celebrant pronouncing the couple to be husband and wife. For
example, the couple could enter into the wedding site
individually through one narrow archway and leave the wedding
site by walking through a wider archway hand-in-hand. When
they come out the other side, they're married. It's
common in Wiccan handfastings for the bride and groom to hold
hands and jump over a broom. When they land, they're
hitched. Another possibility is to have a goblet of mead (or
other special beverage) at hand. After the vows have been
said and the rings exchanged, the bride lifts up the cup and
says, "I drink to my husband!" She drinks, and
passes the cup to her husband, who lifts it and says, "I
drink to my wife!" When he has sipped, they both hold up
the cup and simultaneously announce, "We drink to our
wedded bliss." They then attempt to drink from the same
cup without dribbling.
Congratulations
Most mainstream weddings end with a reception line,
where all the guests queue up to hug the couple and wish them
well. A creative alternative to this is to pass around a
special goblet or drinking horn of mead or champagne amongst
the guests. As each guest receives it, he or she stands up or
steps forward and raises a toast to the marriage (loud enough
so that all the other guests can hear it). The toast may
praise the couple, welcome them into the family, wish them
future happiness, or attempt to embarrass them with
references to the wedding night. The toasting ritual gives
all the guests an opportunity to actively participate in the
wedding ceremony and to express whatever emotions it has
raised in them. If you decide to conclude your wedding with a
round of toasts, it's wise to chose an eloquent friend or
relative (someone you trust to be audible, concise, and
original) to start it off and act as an example for
others.
When designing your own wedding ritual the most important thing to keep in mind is that every element should hold meaning for you. There's nothing wrong with borrowing bits and pieces from various different printed ceremonies as long as you understand the purpose and symbolism of those bits and pieces. If you can think of a more personal way of communicating something, don't be afraid to work it in, even if you may have to explain the meaning to the wedding guests. I know of one pagan wedding in which the bride and groom exchanged kittens instead of rings. Everyone who knew the couple thought the gesture perfectly expressed their quirky personalities. But beyond that, the exchange of kittens symbolised their commitment to work together to create a loving, nurturing atmosphere in which the cats, and other creations, could grow. No matter how many traditional elements you incorporate into your wedding ceremony, with a little creativity you can make it uniquely your own.