Guru Goddess

When a bride orders her wedding bouquet, it might not seem that any “activities” will come from it other than as a thing for the bride to hold so she can look pretty and traditional.

But the bridal bouquet can be the source of many interesting activities to help make the wedding memorable.

During there ceremony there are all kinds of possibilities for the bridal bouquet. Certainly you can go traditional and have flowers for both the mother of the bride and mother of the groom.

But what if you turned that traditional gesture on its head and supplied flowers for both the mothers and the fathers?

If the bride supplies flowers to both the men and women, there are a couple of ways to do this. Dad’s flower could be enclosed in a verse that he will then get up and read at the ceremony? What if the flower is used as a symbol to recognize the members of the family who have passed, and it gives dad an opportunity to recognize those family members?

If the bride chooses not to have a unity candle, but wants to have a similar gesture, she can have her bridal bouquet designed by having several small bouquets put together.

At an appropriate time during the ceremony, the bridal bouquet can be “broken up” and various people might receive a share, such as the mothers and fathers of the bride and groom.

Now, if the bride wants to hang onto her bridal bouquet during the wedding ceremony, but is willing to have some fun with it at the reception, there are a few options there as well.

How about a dance involving the bridal bouquet? This is silly, but fun. The bridal bouquet is on display somewhere near the dance floor and guests must guess a flower that’s in the bouquet before they can enter the dance floor.

The first few guests might not have a problem as some flowers are obvious, like roses and tulips, but others might give people pause. Of course, this won’t work if the bridal bouquet is all roses or some other single and obvious flower but for a traditional mixed bouquet, it can work well.

For a naughty touch, the bride can hide her garter in the bridal bouquet and actually put it on her leg before the groom takes it off. Or she can have a couple of breakaway bouquets that are wrapped in garter belts, so hers doesn’t get thrown, but instead the tiny bouquets with garter belts attached are thrown.

When it comes time for the bride to throw her bouquet, there are several options. Some brides choose not to keep their bouquet and simply pluck one flower out of it before chucking the whole thing during the bridal bouquet toss. This is an alternative to having a special bouquet set aside for throwing, and there are others as well.

Are there are a lot of single women coming to the wedding? Maybe one thrown bouquet won’t be enough. Many brides these days are opting for something a little more fun.

One popular option is to have the florist create several small bouquets and then bundle them to look like one bouquet. They are tied lightly with a ribbon. When it comes time for the bouquet toss, the bride unties the ribbon, and throws the “bouquet” which is actually several little bouquets. Several women will catch the bouquet, rather than just one.

Other brides are opting for silk bouquets, so that they will have a lasting keepsake. You can have more than one bouquet like this, one to keep, and one that is thrown.

Whatever you decide, the bridal bouquet is an integral traditional part of a wedding ceremony. To help make your wedding memorable, try a bridal bouquet activity.

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If you are planning a wedding and plan to have a unity candle as part of the ceremony, you might want to think outside the box and do something a bit different with your unity candle.

Traditionally, the unity candle involves three candles. The bride has one, the groom the other, and their two lighted candles light the third candle. This is done to represent the coming together of the two people to make one unit.

In some alternate ideas on how to use the unity candle, family members can be asked to to participate in the unity candle lighting. The mothers of the bride and groom, the mothers and fathers, or other close members of the family might be invited.

Each family then lights a candle, and together they light the unity candle to symbolize of the coming together of the families.

There are a few twists you can add to this fairly conventional aspect of a wedding ceremony. You can provide each guest with an unlit candle when they arrive at the ceremony.

After the couple lights the unity candle, they can ask the guests to move to the front of the church (or wherever the ceremony is being held) and light their candles with the lighted unity candle.

This can take a bit of time and might be best with a smaller guest list. But it is a meaningful way to not only get your guests involved in the ceremony itself, but also to symbolize the union of family and friends which comes with the marriage.

If there is a large guest list and it would be a prohibitive amount of time to do a candle lighting involving everyone at the ceremony, some brides and grooms like to bring the unity candle to the reception. Light the candle again and provide each guest with a small votive candle (the candle holder will be on the tables at individual table settings).

As guests come into the reception area or hall, they can light their votive and take it to their table to place into the votive holder. This small votive candle can double as a wedding favor, particularly if you decorate or enhance a plain votive candleholder in some way to coordinate with your wedding.

Of course, you can forget having a unity candle at the ceremony altogether. Many brides these days are trying to reduce the length of the ceremony and spend more time planning the reception.

Because of this, some choose to do away with a unity candle altogether. You can certainly do this, or you can cut it out of the ceremony and make it part of the reception.

To do this, you can use the votive candle option suggested above, or you can simply incorporate the unity candle lighting into the reception activities themselves.

For example, you might choose a quiet moment in the reception to have a lighting of the unity candle. It might be during a short prayer prior to the serving of the meal, or right before the cake is cut.

In this example, the unity candle can then be used as decoration on the cake table. As the bride and groom cut the cake and pieces are served to guests, the candle can also serve as a reminder of the couple’s new bond and that the bond is shared with all the guests as well.

Although having a unity candle at the wedding or reception isn’t necessary, it is certainly an option that many brides and grooms decide to include. But it’s important to remember that as with so much surrounding wedding planning, there are ways to make it unique and interesting and special to the couple getting married, to help make the wedding a memorable one.