brighid

Richard,

I love the idea of a midnight wedding! I really wanted to do that and have hundreds of candles lit in the court yard of some old, Gothic building ... but unfortunately the places I found didn't fit our budget and the logistics with a few vendors just didn't work. I also wanted to do it while the moon was full, but the moon wasn't accomodating with dates either

If I could do it all over again I would do it like that ... perhaps somewhere with night blooming jasmine!

Brighid

Opera Nut

Married my second one (who was also an atheist, we broke up for other reasons) at a Unitarian church. I had my friends from a string quartet provide the music. The minister was a UU minister. As has already been mentioned, there are humanist ministers. There was no hymn singing and no praying, by orders of ME. Even my Christian relatives liked it! I organized it all myself.

I think the vows said "love, comfort, honor and keep".

Good luck!

CX

BTW I noticed you are located in Chicagoland. As an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church I'd be happy to preside over your wedding.

MollyMac

Come to England - I'll sort out something really special for you

Failing that, check out our website - for ceremony content I particularly recommend Jane Wynne Willson's book 'Sharing the Future' which is featured on it.

Humanist Ceremonies

sugarbeth

Here's our ceremony.

http://home.attbi.com/~beth-martin/w...m/ceremony.htm

godlesskitties

We were married by a Unitarian minister. Our "interfaith" (or inter-non-faith!) service used elements from both Christian and Jewish traditions, but God was not mentioned anywhere. Here are our vows:

<man> do you now choose <woman> to be your life companion, to share your life openly with her, to speak truthfully and lovingly to her, to accept her fully as she is and delight in who she is becoming; to respect her uniqueness, encourage her fulfillment, and compassionately support her through all the changes of your years together?

MrsRebA

One of our good friends just got married on Saturday. So this is mostly still fresh in my mind (not counting the 5 glasses of wine)

They had a small elm? (tree with red leaves) in a ceramic pot (all total tree and pot was about 2-3feet tall).

Then they called up the parents. Each of the parents had brought dirt with them from where ever they called home. They had 4 small dishes of dirt. Which they poured into the base of the tree.

They then talked about past and burning the past and the ashes will nurture the tree. They had 13? canisters of ashes which they poured into the tree.

Then they had 28 small canisters of water (from all parts of the globe, they asked people traveling to bring some water from home) They gave that to the tree

Then they got out 32? bells/chimes

Earth, Fire, Water, and Air were all represented. It was really pretty. Some how it all add's up to 364 with the tree being 1 therefore 365 days. They welcomed all the elements of life to nurture the tree (being a symbol of thier relationship/love)

It was a very beautiful service, they then recited vows, exchanged rings and then that was it.

I wish i knew the numbers better. Maybe there is something on line somewhere about this ceremony

VonEvilstein

If you want it traditional, but not religious, get married by the captain of a ship. This was my original plan for wedding - circumstances demanded something a lot quicker, if the woman of my dreams were to be able to live with me (she's from outside the EU).

We might do it again, properly with all the trimmings, at some future date.

Worldtraveller

Sounds like you've come to the right place! Lots of good suggestions here aleady.
I would strongly second the suggestion to get a good friend to preside over the ceremony. It is quite simple to become a reverend ('UU' and some other no religion churches) with a fairly small registration fee.
We had a very small morning ceremony in a small canyon by a stream, in complete renaissance garb. We wrote our own ceremony, which was actually very similar to nj_heathen's. It was loosely based on a wiccan ceremony, but we took a lot of the mystical refeences out that we didn't like, and added our own vows.
Have fun, remember it's a celebration!! And it's a big first step in what will hopefully be a long life of being infidels together!
Good luck.
Lane

KitKit

we had a victorian themed wedding (minus the religion) victorian gown & authentic victorian jewelry, morning coats (with tails) on the men, victorian top hat on my dad. very very pretty.

we were married in an old victorian house, actually in the garden. it was beautiful. after i was all dressed & ready my husband to be & i met in a private room of the house & said our own vows, that we had written, to each other. then we had a justice of the peace (a female) do the ceremony & when i told her that we didn't want anything in the ceremony about god or "obeying" each other, she said she had the perfect thing for us. her part of the ceremony lasted about 10 minutes and she talked about all the important things in a marriage... mutual respect, caring, yada yada. she even included our friends and family & said it was their responsibility to be "the glue that holds us together, not the wedge that tears us apart." it was so touching that even she had a few tears during the ceremony! then after the ceremony she gave us a printed copy of the ceremony on parchment kind of paper, to frame or whatever.

we had friends of ours, who had a band, play on the balcony above us, they played the wedding song for the processional (can't think of who it's by at the moment, but you know the one that is kinda 70's singer songwriter style) and then for the recessional they played "thank you" by led zeppelin (you know it, "when the mountains crumble to the sea, i'll still be loving you" )

all in all it was a wonderful wedding. of course we could have gone to costa rica & gotten married on the beach for less than we spent on the wedding , heh heh, c'est la vie!