Same-sex Wedding Archives • White Rose Ceremonies

Creating Memories, Your Perfect Wedding Ceremony

3 December 2018/in Celebrant /by Rebecca Waldron

When it comes to your Wedding Day, you and your partner are creating wedding memories. For your guests, that starts with drinks on arrival, greeting family and friends. The care that you have put into creating memories for your perfect wedding ceremony will be remembered for many years.

But have you taken the same care with your wedding ceremony? If you have the bog-standard council ceremony, how memorable will that be? Will the interest of your guests fade? Rather than really listening to your wedding vows, will your guests just be waiting for the drinks, food and entertainment?

With a wedding ceremony led by a Celebrant, the anticipation and excitement of your arrival is aided by the Celebrant’s engagement with your guests. White Rose Ceremonies encourage the happy chatter and applause for when the first member of the wedding party arrives.

We make sure everybody is seated and check that everything is where it should be for the ceremony. It’s part of what we do.

And we make sure your perfect wedding ceremony is all about you.

It may well include the lovely traditional elements of a wedding ceremony, such as readings, vows, exchange of rings and the signing of a certificate. It might include symbolic rituals that celebrate your commitment to each other in different ways.

But your guests will be engaged and immersed in your perfect wedding ceremony as we tell your story. We have lots of ideas of how we can include special people without them having to get up and read. These are things that you won’t get with the council ceremony.

This is your day. It is all about creating memories. It is all about giving you your perfect wedding ceremony. These ceremonies can take place at any location, licensed or unlicensed. We provide you with the opportunity to have your perfect wedding ceremony wherever you want it. It can be in a formal venue, your home, your grandmother’s garden, on the beach or in a forest.

Your promises can be celebrated with as many people as you want and with the words, music and feeling that you want. Whether that is humanist, religious or secular (not connected with any particular religious or spiritual matters), it is your ceremony.

We have even conducted ceremonies with a translator for friends and families who don’t speak English and as for including pets – well, we are becoming quite the experts!

Creating memories for your perfect wedding ceremony is easier than you think. Contact us for more information!

Photographs courtesy of David Waldron, White Rose Ceremonies.

Chris Taylor Photography

Celebrant Wedding for Your Special Day

11 January 2017/in Celebrant /by Rebecca Waldron

Looking through the photographs of our weddings, we realise how privileged we are to become friends with many of our lovely wedding couples. And this is what happens when you book a Celebrant Wedding.

It’s important to form this relationship because ,when it comes to your big day, you want a friendly face and somebody who knows exactly what you want for your celebration.

Whether your celebrant wedding is on a farm, in a Labyrinth, at a formal venue, or in your garden, we make every effort to make sure that you feel comfortable with us and that you trust us to conduct the ceremony that you want.

Read on to find out how we do this…

We visit you several times and, without being intrusive, we get to know you. As part of your package you receive our Wedding Book. It’s full of resources that provide you with lots of choice for your ceremony such as unity ceremony, handfasting, rose ceremony and many other ideas.

We have lots of lovely ways to include special people – grandparents, children, friends and even your pets…

We include a rehearsal so that you become familiar with where to stand. We also talk to your ushers and bridal party about where they should be and, if they are not at the rehearsal, we will talk to them before the ceremony starts.

After your celebrant wedding ceremony, we wish you all the very best for your married life and that we hope to keep in touch. And we are so very happy that we do exactly that – keep in touch. Enjoy your day!

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Alice & Jo’s Same Sex Wedding, Longstowe Hall

25 June 2016/in Celebrant /by Rebecca Waldron

Alice and Jo’s same sex Wedding Ceremony took place at the stunning Longstowe Hall in Cambridgeshire. Set in beautiful gardens, Alice and Joanne’s Wedding Ceremony was held on the Gazebo Island on the lake.

Having contacted White Rose Ceremonies in September last year, we met with Alice and Joanne several times to create a ceremony that reflected who they really are. Their wedding rehearsal was held at a location close to Longstowe Hall. We had a wonderful time with them and their families at the rehearsal, spending time walking through the ceremony so that they were completely comfortable with it.

The sun shone on their Wedding Day, guests were seated and the bridal parties arrived. Joanne walked with her father and bridesmaids first. Alice followed with her bridesmaids, escorted by her mother until she reached her father’s wheelchair. He was determined to walk his daughter to meet Joanne and to everybody’s delight, he did this. A very happy and touching moment that left us all with tears in our eyes.

Alice and Joanne’s Wedding Ceremony was emotional and funny in equal parts. Their rings were held closely in the palms of each family member to wish Joanne and Alice love and support in the marriage before being placed on their fingers. With beautiful readings and a signing of a commemorative certificate, Alice and Joanne’s happiness was there for all to see.

We had the perfect day with Alice, Joanne and their families. It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Alice’s father just three weeks after the wedding. He was a very special man and we were so glad that he found the strength to be there for Alice and Joanne on their happy day.

A poem for Giles – ‘He is Gone’

You can shed tears that he is gone,

Or you can smile because he has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,

Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him,

Or you can be full of the love that you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him and only that he is gone,

Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back,

Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

By David Harkin (adapted)

Photographs courtesy of: Andy Fountain Photography

Venue: Longstowe Hall

Mark and Brent’s Wedding Ceremony

13 August 2015/in Celebrant /by Rebecca Waldron

Mark and Brent had the complete support of their family and friends as they prepared for their wedding ceremony. They conducted the legal side of things in a routine appointment at their local Register Office two days previously, saving their wedding vows and exchange of rings for the ceremony conducted in the Social Club of HMP Whitemoor.

The main room of the club was transformed into a beautiful venue when decorated in sumptuous blue, white and silver. Tall and luxurious flower arrangements were displayed on each table and an aisle had been created with lavish candelabras, lit with blue and silver candles.

The Grooms were in long-tailed jackets with royal blue cravats and there was a great sense of excitement as the guests waited for them to arrive. Mark and Brent entered through separate doors, meeting at the beginning of the aisle before the wedding ceremony began.

Mark and Brent had thought long and hard about their wedding ceremony, using our White Rose Wedding Book for inspiration. They had all the elements of a traditional wedding ceremony and included handfasting to signify the bonds they have between them.

Two friends read poems which Mark and Brent had chosen from the extensive resource we offer. They also lit a candle to remember Mark’s father, a very emotional moment.

There were more tears as Mark and Brent exchanged their vows and you could hear a pin drop in the room, such was the attention of everybody there. After they signed the certificate which celebrates their marriage we closed the ceremony and they left to cheers and applause.

Celebrations followed with drinks and photographs outside, a bouncy castle, speeches and a disco that had everybody dancing into the night.

It was a wonderful day and we were overwhelmed by the love and support for Mark and Brent. It was a real privilege to be asked to conduct their wedding ceremony and it’s one we will remember for a long time.

Photographs taken by David Waldron of White Rose Ceremonies.

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And we make sure your perfect wedding ceremony is all about you.