Wedding ceremony elaborations include those parts and pieces of the ceremony that communicate the specific beliefs and values of the bride and groom. Elaborations include spoken portions of the ceremony i.e. vows. They can also include unspoken portions of the ceremony such as lighting candles or Sand Ceremonies. The elaborations you choose should fit your overall wedding theme. Beach weddings are perfect for Sand Ceremonies. The reasons are obvious. This is an example of how an elaboration fits into the ceremony theme. Remember: just because a wedding happens in a specific location doesn’t mean the theme is going to reflect that location. You might have a rock-n-roll wedding in a barn. Elaborations should be consistent with your beliefs. Sometimes a wedding includes elaborations that don’t fit. For instance, communion. Communion historically is used by religious couples who come from a traditional Christian, Protestant or Catholic background. If your ceremony does not include references to God or the Bible, including communion might not make a lot of sense. However, other elaborations such as the use of floral crowns or specific decorations may work very nicely sans the religious overtones. Tradition should drive your choice of elaborations. The Hispanic culture frequently uses the Lasso Ceremony. The Lasso is symbolic for connection and commitment and it has many religious undertones. The Lasso ceremony may fit will into a traditional Hispanic wedding but it may need some tweaking for an Anglo wedding. For instance, central European cultures have a ceremony called “hand fastening.” It’s the same idea as the Lasso but with a small rope that secures only the hands together. Elaborations should be personal. Every bride and groom wants to have fun. Unfortunately, many never achieve fun in their wedding because they are so hindered with traditional expectations of what a wedding should look and sound like. You have to force creativity into weddings sometimes. This is how we make weddings fun: by making them personal and unique to the bride and groom. If the couple loves a specific movie, book series or set of paintings incorporate those as decorations, use the lyrics in your vows or dress up like your favorite literary character. Elaborations should inform your assembly. Who is the assembly? Those are your friends and family, guests and relatives whom you have invited to your wedding ceremony. Each of the specific elaborations you’ve included in your ceremony should communicate something about who you are and what you believe. The most obvious example of this is the backstory. The backstory is a brief, 3-8 minute (2-3 pages, typed, single spaced) introduction of the couple. It introduces the bride and groom to the assembly. It answers the question, How did they meet?...

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The wedding ceremony backstory is the ideal way to communicate the specifics about your love for your future spouse. The benefit of taking the time to write the wedding backstory includes but is not limited to, introducing your future spouse to the other side of the family, telling your closest family and friends why you’re in love, and just because it’s fun to talk about your future spouse and all the things you love about them. A quality backstory gets his and her opinions. It can’t be a complete backstory if it’s one sided. The Backstory should enlighten both “sides of the aisle.” All of your ceremony guests should feel like they know the bride and groom more deeply after hearing the backstory. For example. “Beaux and Soriah met like so many modern couples meet: online. After a causal online chat or two they decided to meet up. In fact, she approached him first. After they met, Beaux said his first impression of Soriah was, and I quote, “Beautiful inside and out.” They quickly learned that they had much in common including kids, family, and soccer. And of course, they shared a love for the local burger grill where they enjoyed their first lunch date. In Beaux’s words, “the conversation was smooth and easy, and I couldn’t wait for number two.” When writing the backstory don’t look for uniformity. Your ceremony planning specialist will help iron out the kinks in language so that your Officiant is able to clearly and accurately communicate the specifics of your history together. It’s ok for this type of writing to include two separate voices: the groom’s and the bride’s. It’s ok to use a template. After all: this particularly feet of writing has been done before. Let a professional officiant guide you through the process those that there are as few bumps in the road as possible. If you ask Beaux what he admires about Soriah he’ll say, “her guts, and her willingness to fight through the tough years.” Beaux loves the way Soriah treats others, but most of all, he loves how she treats his children. She loves them, “with no strings attached.” The right backstory includes what you love about your future spouse and nothing else. Tell people what you’ve learned not what they expect to hear, or what you think they want to hear. Be specific whenever possible. “The list of the things Soriah loves about Beaux is not short. It’s pretty much everything. But the list definitely includes his smile, his faith and how she loves him, sharing fires outside, their travels, dinners, a similar sense of humor…and her foot rubs are the best!Beaux can’t wait to see her every day, hold her, talk with her....

Writing a great backstory doesn’t have to be a terrible, confusing or dismaying experience. Take a minute to get some perspective on this amazingly important ceremony elaboration. The power of the backstory should not be underestimated. Though many of your wedding guests may know you, they do not know your significant other. Even those friends and family members whom you’ve invited probably know you as who you were. They may not know who you’ve become since you were a child. Consider that your significant other has had a dramatic influence on you. Their influence is probably greater than any other person on the planet, even those family and friends you grew up with.  It’s safe to say: no one really knows you on your wedding day! There are several purposes of the backstory. Each purpose may resonate with your more or less as you begin to put your thoughts on paper. The first major purpose of The backstory is to bring your audience up to speed. Even those with whom you’ve kept in touch will benefit from hearing what the past few years has brought. The backstory presents the recent events of your life, to your audience, in your words. Second, the backstory introduces the “stranger” in your family’s life. Your spouse is probably unknown to most of the assembly. This is his/her “big reveal” so-to-speak. Who better to introduce them to your family and friends than you? Finally, The backstory enlightens, inspires and excites your friends and family to embrace your new married life. This might be the most important part of The backstory. Those present at your wedding probably constitute some of the most significant people in your life. They will remain significant to you and your spouse for decades to come. The backstory has the power to call your guests to action! This is your opportunity to help your family and friends fall in love with the best qualities of your spouse; the qualities that you find most attractive and meaningful. The backstory helps your family and friends “commit” to their part in supporting the couple and the marriage. In one sense, it’s not just you whose “taking the plunge” on your wedding day. Your family and friends are also going to be faced with a daily decision to honor, love and support their new friend and family member, your spouse. The backstory helps to present your spouse as the wonderful and loving person you’ve come to know over the last few months. Help your family and friends love your spouse with the same depth that you have come to love them. After all, marriage is about bringing the past and present of two would-be-strangers together in a meaningful way, in...

The wedding backstory should be easy to write. Here’s a simple guide to making the process of writing your wedding backstory a bit less difficult. Don’t Include Everything It should include a few of the main events that led you to decide to get married. These events may be different or the same for the bride and the groom. It’s important to share both the bride and groom’s perspective of these events so that the backstory includes the perspectives of both. Include historical images and some information that is helpful towards describing your present life. Be sure to exclude embarrassing, historical facts and experiences. These don’t typically make for an enjoyable reading experience for your audience. Bad Example: Bob grew up in rural Indiana, the son of a farmer and a hippie. He spent his days running through corn fields, hoping for the day he might leave his obscure beginnings and ascend the ladder of Corporate America as a hedge fund manager. Bob really likes money and thinks people who don’t like money are stupid. Steve was raised by a blacksmith in downtown Detroit, always wondering where his next meal would come from. Good Example: Steve and Jane came from very different upbringings. For this reason, it was fortuitous that they met in the Cayman Islands. Jane was studying the reproductive habits of plankton. Steve was getting sunburned on the beach. Think Short Term Historical information may be relevant, funny and/or enlightening, and it should only be used if it helps your audience get to know you in the present. Likewise, backstories can get very long and may become tedious for the audience to listen to. Think short term for the sake of keeping the entire ceremony within 20 minutes. The typical backstory will take about 2-3 minutes to read. This equates to about 1 page, double spaced. Good Example: Matt and Sophie met like every other couple: skydiving in the Alps! That’s right, whereas most couples “fall for each other” after eating pasta together, these two just skipped that part and fell from a perfectly good airplane together. Answer a Few Significant Questions In general, the backstory should answer three key questions for your audience: Question #1: What were the circumstances that led to the couple’s coming together? Bad Example: Shawna and Mike never really wanted to get married. Shawna thought she’d die alone with her birds. Mike thought love was for weak people with no real aspirations for life. The sentiments might be true but they are not helpful for communicating a story that ultimately will conclude with (we all hope), “And they all lived happily ever after.” Too much cynicism tends to kill the mood of the backstory and...

Getting a Marriage License in California is not difficult. When get your marriage license you’ll be confronted with important choices. These choices affect how your personal information is captured and recorded for public use. Here are a few facts about California Marriage Licenses to help guide you toward your wedding day. Two Choices For Marriage Licenses The typical marriage license, issued in the State of California is a standard, one page document, purchased at any California County Clerk Recorder’s office. The document records necessary information about the couple getting married, the date of the marriage, the location, the individual Officiating the marriage, two spots for “witnesses” to sign, and a line to record the bride’s change of name. This document is “public.” Don’t worry, random citizens cannot access it. In fact, the newly married couple can’t even get a copy without a formal application and a fee. “Public” simply means the document can be obtained with the consent of those listed on the document. A random stranger cannot gain access to this information without your consent. The second type of marriage license issued in California is the Confidential Marriage License. Once recorded, this license cannot be accessed by anyone except for those whose names are on it. Likewise, the information found on the confidential license is kept from any public record. A significant difference between these two types of licenses is the handling of witnesses. Whereas the standard marriage license requires at least one signature of a witness (signature, printed name and personal address), the confidential license does not require a witness to sign. A confidential license must be signed by the bride and groom and the Officiant and then processed through the County Clerk’s office (who also signs it), but no witnesses’ signatures are required. Since there is no need for witnesses to sign a Confidential Marriage License, this type of license is ideal for elopements. The fee to obtain either a standard or confidential license is the same in the State of California. The County Clerk Recorder As was mentioned above the County Clerk Recorder’s office is the place where marriage licenses are issued and processed. The Clerk’s office is responsible for issuing marriage licenses, verifying them once they are returned, issuing edit requirements in the case of errors and inputting the demographic data found on the license into public record. The Clerk works with the Department of Public Health to maintain records relevant to marriages in each county. In order to receive a marriage license in the State of California, both parties must appear in person to the County Clerk Record’s office, present picture identification, pay the fee and complete the Clerk’s portions of the license including official names,...