Читать книгу Weddings from the Heart - Daphne Rose Kingma - Страница 8

Traditional weddings are generally based on the values of society and the church. In addition to honoring the bond between the bride and groom, they invite the new couple to surrender their union to the care and approbation of the larger community. In such ceremonies, marriage can be construed to be somehow at the service of society or the church. The bride and groom are saying, in effect, “through this ceremony we submit our relationship to a larger, more commonly held notion of what marriage is; we will live by society's or the church's definition of what's right.”

Because you have purchased this book, you obviously want something other than the strictly traditional ceremony available through your church or synagogue. By providing you with a selection of elements both traditional and contemporary, this book is a gift to that purpose. It invites you to consciously create the wedding ceremony that will have the profoundest meaning for you. For in deciding to create a wedding from the heart, you're saying that you are interested in a more personalized definition of marriage, one that includes a very specific reflection of your love and of what your relationship means to you. You know that love is a feeling—it's what's brought you here; but you also know that marriage is an undertaking that will ask you to mature your love in a way that serves, delights, and challenges you; and it's this that you are wanting to express in your departure from tradition.

Weddings from the Heart encourages you to expand the definition of marriage by reshaping traditional elements in such a way that you can acknowledge time-honored values while creating a highly personalized wedding ceremony. By studying the various components of the ceremony, choosing those that suit you exactly and working together so that what you include reflects what both of you feel, you can create a truly beautiful wedding. Your wedding will be a personalized expression of your values and experiences, as well as of the hopes, dreams, and intentions that are so precious to both of you. Above all, it can become the blueprint for the life you intend to live when you are married.