HOW WOULD YOU HANDLE: Complicated family situation for wedding announcements, seating, unity candle lighting, ?
Here's my situation: My fiancee and I are both 25 years old (never married & have no kids). He just finished Pharmacy school and I just finished...
Here’s my situation: My fiancee and I are both 25 years old (never married & have no kids). He just finished Pharmacy school and I just finished my MBA. We have waited a long time to get married and deserve a great wedding. I do not come from a broken home, however, my father died when I was 15 from cancer. My fiancee’s family is a more complicated: His dad is suffering with ALS right now and is completely bedridden. His parents have been divorced for 20+ years and has absolutely NO contact with his mother. How do you suppose we address the matter of wording of wedding announcements, seating, and unity candle lighting?
Are you paying for the wedding? You and your FI?
We had a fairly formal wedding, a wedding that WE paid for, and our invites basically said:
The honour of your presence
is requested at the marriage of
Miss Jane Smith
to
Mr Gregory Doe
Saturday, the fifteenth of January
at Four Thirty in the afternoon
Main Street Events
Los Angeles, California
Seating should be at your discretion. For example, my MIL is lost without being able to gossip with her inlaws and cousins. We like to be around friends that we don’t see often. We HATE being put at the same table with babies (we don’t have kids), my MIL/FIL (we see them enough already), or people we simply don’t like or wouldn’t mesh.
If he has no contact with his mom, then there is no reason to invite her, unless he wants to mend fences. If his dad is remarried, perhaps he can invite his stepmother to stand in for his father.
The unity candle is up to you. If you don’t have parents there, then it doesn’t make a ton of sense to do one. Instead, do a flower exchange, a wine drinking, or skip it.
PS – You are the Fiancee. Your FI is the Fiance (one ‘e’).
Easy.
You are paying for the wedding, so there is no need to mention the parents. Contemporary writing does not include the parents names and only says:
Jane Doe
and
Jonsh Smith
together with their families
cordially invite you….
For more examples on invite wording go to :
http://www.theknot.com
Good luck
As far as seating. go with a sweetheart table and avoid any other tangles. Seat your mother with with yours and other inmediate family or wedding party.
Unity candle: You don’t have to that. If you feel that you must, only you and your husnand lit the candle at teh same tiem and that symbolized teh union of the families. No one else needs to be involved. Many people are opting out of this because their venue does not allow them to lit candle sbecause of fire hazards.
I know what you mean, my fiancee’s dad passed away when he was six, his mom re-married, my mom has been divorced three times…we had problems with that also…
BUT this is what we are saying, and I think it works:
"The parents of (enter brides name) and (grooms name) request your presence"
Using all the parents.
Seating, isn’t a big deal, let people sit where they are comfortable.
Unity Candle….have your mother light yours….and have a close relative of your fiancee light his.
Remember, it doesn’t really matter who does it…just that your families will be joined, and it’s someone that he feels deserves to light his side of the unity candle.
Hope This helps.
You could use something like this that doesn’t have the parents names mentioned:
Please celebrate with us
Maureen Mcauliffe
and
Tony Galliano
as we begin our best work
together
on February 21, 2012
at 4:00 pm
Merrill Inn Dockside
74 Bay Boulevard
Plicate, Georgia
I was going to suggest everything that Blunt suggested. She is 100% right.
you could write;
the families of (your name) and the families of (his name) come together to unite (your name & his name)
depends on who you all want to mention though. my fiance and i have a similar prob, he isn’t close to his dad at all and i do haven’t seen my mom in years and both of our parents are divorced so we’re just using his mom’s name and my dad’s name even though my dad is remarried.
hope this helps and congrats!
I agree with Blunt. However, I did attend a wedding where the bride and groom lite their own candles, and then together lite the unity candles and extinguished the individual ones.
You can also omit the unity candle idea. Or have the candles lite by someone beforehand. I think it might be nice to have the best man walk up and light the two candles before the bridesmaids start walking down the aisle.
Or what about the maid of honor and best man lighting them because the bride walks down the aisle. That would be neat.
You announce your marriage by sending people a personal handwritten letter on plain stationery, written by either you, your H2B, or some other family member. You seat people according to the old fashioned "his side or her side" formula or by the modern "sit where there is room and you are comfortable" formula. Whatever a "unity candle lighting" may be, if its structure is so rigid that you can’t modify it to something suitable then do without it.
For the wording of your invitation just go with you doing the invitiing. If you wish add "together with their families".
For the seating, well, it is the 21st century, so at the ceremony have the ushers tell the guests to sit either side – just fill up from the front. Reserve the front row on both sides for "family" and have people from your family, including aunts, cousins, etc sit in the row. Just reserve a seat for your mother.
Walk down the aisle together, you on your own, or escorted by your mother.
Most unity candle rituals have become formulaic, but that does not mean that you can’t adapt the ritual to mean what you want it to mean.
In many ways the so-called "standard" way of doing it and "standard" words are just a statement of the obvious, two people joining their lives.
In your case it would be appropriate to reverse the ritual. So provide everyone with a small candle as they arrive at the ceremony (one of those "carols by candlelight" type candles with a cardboard collar to protect the hand from dripping wax)
So, have your officiant say something like:
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Love and tjhe happiness it brings into our lives never decreases by being shared.
BRIDE and GROOM light this candle as a symbol of the love they share.
{Together you light one large candle.}
And as a symbol of the capacity of their love for each other to encompass each of you, their family and friends, they will how pass the flame to each of you. Would you please stand.
[Guests stand and bride and groom take a taper each and light it from the large candle. The then walk back to their places and the groom lights the candle of the best man, the bride of the chief bridesmaid. The bridal party light each other's candles in turn - passing down the line on either side while the bride and groom walk to the front and light the candle of the first guest seated.
The guests in the front row light the candle of the person beside them - going down the row and then turn and light the candle of the person immediately behind them.
From then on guests light the candle of the person immediately behind them (this makes the whole candle-lighting go very quickly).
When all the candles are lit the officiant says some appropriate words including something about the flame being symbolic so extinguishing it doesn’t extinguish the love.]
Where in the ceremony you have this candle-lighting will drive how long the candles are kept alight. It is lovely to do this just before the vows so that the candles are alight during the vows and are extinguished afterwards.
for the wedding announcements i would just do "your mothers name" requests your presence at the marriage of her daughter
I don’t know if the groom’s parents are named in the invitation, since everyone’s expecting the bride’s side to be hosting/paying for everything. in the wedding announcement, if his mother or father have remarried, then you name both those couples as his parents and step parents. for seating, I guess his father can’t attend so you don’t have to worry about seating him far from his mother. do you mean your fiance has no contact with his mother? then don’t invite her. why would you if he has no contact with her? and forget the unity candle, that’s the hokeyest sappiest thing ever
Okay, maybe these suggestions will help. There are not hard & fast rules on many of these things; it will be up to you as to what you like the best!
For the unity candle, don’t sweat it! The symbolism behind the unity candle has nothing to do with the families or mothers at all. It never did! The two side candles symbolize the two of you; the larger middle candle & the lighting of it with the other two, symbolizes that the two of you are not separate anymore; you are now one. That’s it! Somewhere along the lines, the mothers decided they wanted to do something at the wedding, or show off their dresses, or be more recognized, or something & they started lighting the side candles. For this, just have the ushers, groomsmen, coordinator, or someone else light the side candles about 15 minutes before the ceremony starts. Simple!
Now, for the seating. It is traditional for the immediate family of the couple to sit in the first few rows. Traditionally, the mothers & fathers sit on the very first row. After that, it is really just opinion & matter of taste as to where everyone else goes. You can really have anyone you want sitting anywhere you want! It is your day! If parents are divorced, then usually I seat the mother on the first row with her parents & other relatives, then the father on the second row with his parents & other relatives. If either of the parents is remarried, their spouses sit with them. Don’t try to force people who do not get along to sit beside each other; it will only cause trouble!
On announcements: for the newspaper announcements you are usually asked to fill out a form that they give you. It is very simple, it says: "Bride’s Parents, Groom’s Parents" etc. You just fill it in.When you come to a spot where a relative is deceased, you write it this way:"The late Mr. John Jones", or "Mrs. Janet Jones, and the late Mr. John Jones". Where relatives are divorced, you write it this way,"Mrs. (or Ms.) Janet Jones & Mr. John Jones. If relatives are divorced & remarried, write it this way:"Mrs. Janet Smith & Mr. John Jones", or "Mr. & Mrs. Janet & Mike Smith and Mr. & Mrs. John Jones" (if they are both remarried & the new spouses are being included.
For invitation wording, it is much simpler, b/c only the people actually paying for the wedding, or "hosting" the wedding are included. For example, if your mother is hosting by herself, you can write this:
Mrs. Janet Jones requests the honour……
If expenses are being shared by several people, and it is complicated as to who to include, or if the couple is hosting themselves, then write this:
The honour of your presence is requested
at the marriage of
Miss Helen Jones
and
Mr. Jake Taylor……..
(if you only have your names, then no one can complain of being left off!).
Hope this helps! If you still have questions, feel free to e=mail me!