Meaningful Christian Wedding Ideas

This section is filled with meaningful Christian wedding ideas for your ceremony. How can you make your wedding day special? How can you make it stand out from all the other weddings? How can you let the world know that yours is not just another wedding, but a Christ-centered union of two believers?

By making the ceremony Christian in nature. You can choose to create a Christian wedding in many ways. You can choose to have Christian music in your ceremony.

You can choose to read beautiful Scripture verses at your wedding.

You can incorporate one, two, or even all three of the following Christian wedding ideas into your ceremony:

The Unity Candle Ceremony

The Unity Sand Ceremony

The Cord Of Three Strands Ceremony

You can have your minister serve communion to you and your groom during the ceremony.

Have the minister give a short wedding sermon during the ceremony. He can talk about the meaning of marriage and how God designed marriage so we would not be alone.

Have the minister emphasize that Christ is at the center of your union in the wedding prayers that he prays.

Advice For The Wedding Rehearsal

by Harriet, Former Wedding Coordinator, wife of 25 years
(Federal Way, WA)

I was a wedding coordinator for 23 years, resigning to better care for myself and family when our daughter had cancer while pregnant.

Too many people at a wedding rehearsal that are not part of the wedding party is an invitation to incredible stress. Forty-Five year old Maiden Aunt Susie wants to 'advise' you on such and such or tell you what SHE thinks is the best way to do something (cuz she's never had a wedding), the wife of the best man brings their undisciplined 3-year old who runs around screaming so loudly you can't hear the pastor's instructions, the 8-year old nephew decides that the church worship instruments have invited him to come impress others with his bad interpretation of 'chopsticks', and cousins by the dozens have come from out of state to be at your wedding and are chatting incessantly. NONE of those people need to attend! They generally only create more stress for the bride on THE most stressful day of her young life to that point!

Talk with either your wedding coordinator or pastor and they SHOULD give you the authority to say something akin to "I'm sorry you can't be there tonight for the rehearsal, but I will see you later. The Wedding Coordinator (or Pastor) has requested that only the parents and attendants join the bridal couple at the rehearsal."

If you have parents or future in-laws causing problems, now is the time to grow a backbone (not a year into the marriage when you are thoroughly intimidated!) and politely tell them that this is YOUR special day and while you love them and want them there, they are to consciously, deliberately leave their attitudes and in-fighting at the door. I have thankfully worked with a pastor who was not at all shy about taking a rude, overbearing mom, who was making the bride cry, to the parking lot and kindly but strongly telling her that unless she ramped down she would not be allowed back in. If you have a pastor like that, thank the Lord!


Bottom line: You are a big girl now. Don't let others intimidate you, don't let others ruin your day. You and your husband need to present a united front so that your day will always be remembered with joyful thoughts.


***Harriet,
Thank you so much for your words of wisdom on the wedding rehearsal and so much more!

No Bridezillas!
by: Harriet

Just an additional comment. I am in no way encouraging "Bridezilla" behavior! Calm, assertive control in the event the scenarios above represent your family is what I am suggesting. Graciousness, with firmness. :-)

Harriet,
I agree and thank you for all of the helpful suggestions!
Juanita

Beautiful, But Inexpensive Wedding

by Harriet, former Wedding Coordinator, wife of 25 years
(Federal Way, WA)

Our son's wedding, of necessity, had to be entirely funded by my husband, who in the 6 months working up to the wedding had been employed all of 8 weeks. We HAD to keep costs low. There were approximately 100 guests and we spent approximately $5000 not including the Bride's apparel or her maid of honor's apparel. This amount took into consideration a suit for my husband, apparel for our two daughters and granddaughter, a dress for myself, all the flowers, decorations, cake/beverage, postage, ink, photography, and honorariums.

What saved us money were creative shopping and a Bride who didn't think extravagance was necessary to pull off a beautiful wedding and a confidence that we COULD do this ourselves.

The Bride loves black. Not a typical color for a wedding. But our son was a newly graduated Marine and would be wearing his dress blues. Curiously, the dress jacket is black not blue. Therefore our theme colors were black, with touches of red and classy gold (not glittery, cheap gold, but brass and other gold touches). The Bride and the cake were the only white. The two bridesmaids wore David's dresses in Marine Blue which changed to black when they moved.

The Groomsmaid wore a simple black dress with her daughter, our granddaughter, wearing a perfect red satin dress that cost all of $20 at a Burlington outlet!

By God's gracious gift, I found THE perfect dress, the only one like it, at Ross Dress 4 Less. My size (which actually fit), a style that looked great for my size 16-18 figure, was not 'immodest' or inappropriate for a woman of 55 like many of the "mother's" dresses that frustrated me, and a royal blue that complimented the wedding. I paid $29.99 and googled the maker to find that this dress, but in 4 different colors (no blue) was being sold at Nordstrom's and Davids for $158.00 and $168.00 respectively.

The best man, also a Marine, was detained in boot camp by two weeks, so our son asked his father to step in as his best man. Dad, the other groomsman, the bride's father and the two pastors all simply wore black suits of their choosing with the Dads and groomsman wearing black ties.

A friend's friend, a self-employed former florist shop designer, did our flowers for significantly less than a florist's shop. However, to cut costs she only did the bride's and the toss bouquets, and the corsages for mothers/servers.

Red roses were the red accents. We purchased three bunches of 2 dozen each from Costco (like Sam's Club) for a grand total of $55. The men in our wedding are all "men's men"...nothing foofoo for them. We simply broke off rose heads and pinned them from behind the lapel. The spot of rich red on their lapels totally complimented the red piping on my son's dress jacket.

The two bridesmaids and one groomsmaid carried 3 long-stemmed roses artfully staggered and tied with gold lame' wired ribbon. The pews were adorned with one red rose backed by a loop of black tulle and tide with gold lame' wired ribbon. The family rows had 3 roses.

The reception tables had black plastic 'cloths' overlaid with black tulle, topped with a square mirror. On the mirror was a wide-bowl champagne glass floating a red rose and gold beads were strewn about. The baker used the red roses down the side of the cake as the only color besides the topper and black ribbon.

HOW WE SAVED and you can, too...
We knew a year in advance that the colors would include red and gold metallic. So post-Christmas '07, post-Valentine's '08 and post-Christmas '08 we shopped all the 75-90% clearance sales at Walmart and Joann Fabrics. From them we gathered, at ridiculous prices, gold wired ribbon in multiple widths (some given to the florist so we knew what our corsages would have in them), candles, gold bead garlands and white decorator light strings.

YOU can do that, too. Figure out your colors as far ahead of time as possible then hit all the after holiday sales. Pastel wedding? Try after Easter. Reds: Valentine's, 4th of July and Christmas. Greens: St. Patrick's and Christmas. You just have to keep a creative eye open. Harvest colors? Hit up the pre-Thanksgiving sales...they will move the harvest color items before Thanksgiving Day so they can move in the Christmas products.

From the Goodwill I collected, over time, matching champagne glasses and mirrored squares, brand new toasting flutes (still had their 'made in Germany' stickers!)--$4.00! Even gorgeous glass and crystal serving trays when we thought we were going to serve finger foods. The prices on beautiful serving platters at the thrift stores are less than the wimpy plastic oh-so-cheap looking platters/trays at the restaurant supply stores. Do they match? No...they 'coordinate'. A table's theme can be very well coordinated with all the serveware being clear glass of various descriptions.

A fabric outlet in Seattle carried 108" wide black tulle for $1.29 yd. When they found out it was for a wedding they gave us a 20% 'bridal discount'! Combined with the 52" width available on a big sale at Joann, we had tons to decorate with for dirt cheap.

The unity candle was not a pillar but 3 tapers in a lovely brass candelabra that I got years ago for $1 at a garage sale. The table was from our front hall and the subtle gold cloth from Ross Dress 4 Less. The point is, look around your home (your parents, his parents) for items sitting on a shelf, in a closet, in the cupboards, that can be repurposed for your wedding.

My almost daughter-in-law designed her own invitations which were graciously printed at our church where we offered to cover the cost of the ink. I designed and printed the programs on coordinating paper.

All the tableware was purchased at the dollar store...black cups/plates/napkins, with forks and plastic tablecovers the only things purchased at the more expensive party store.

Even the pop for the punch was in those huge bottles at the dollar store and frozen (less than a buck each can)lemonaid combined with frozen pineapple/star fruit juice completed the beverage. We chose to keep it golden in color as pink would have looked weird.

We did only cake/nuts/candy/beverages. Meals just aren't necessary. The bride and I found the USMC seal in a candy mold and made our own mints from Wilton melties on a 50% off sale at Michaels. We found .50 Hershey's premium dark chocolate bars...underwrapped in gold foil at a grocery outlet store! We designed our own vellum wrapper and ultimately took 40 minutes working with my husband to take off the original overwrap, attached the new one and stack 100 bars. Our 'guest favors' cost us all of $55.00...maybe.

***make sure you are on the mailing list for the craft and fabric stores so you can take advantage of sales and coupons!

A black full sized sheet, in Walmart's clearance bin, covered the gift table and then went home with the bride and groom for their bed.

The candy bars, mints and nuts were served in black plastic bowls/trays that had a clean 'Asian' line to them purchased at Target and Smart & Final/Cash & Carry very inexpensively. The serving spoons for the nuts, sugar, etc were 12 to a pkg for $2 soup spoons like those used at an Asian restaurant. All these went home with the couple as she was decorating their kitchen in black with Asian themes.

Did black seem too somber for a wedding of two people who had saved themselves for this day? On the contrary--it was classy and rich looking, totally belying the relatively small amount paid for the wedding. Of the $5000 spent the most was on photography, nearly half the total cost. But even the photographer gave us a discount as we had the wedding on a Tuesday night so the couple could have the most honeymoon time before his leave was over.

Yes, a Tuesday did lose us some dear guests who couldn't skip work in another state. But if the majority of your guests are local, do consider a wedding date that is uncommon. Your service providers might be delighted to give you a discount simply because it is a day when they aren't busy--some income is better than no income! ("Our date is Saturday the 5th." Get the quote then present an alternate date "What discount could you offer for, say, Thursday the 3rd, a day when you are unlikely to have another wedding?")

Think outside the box!

And yes, the ceremony was deeply tied into our children's personal relationship with Jesus and prior to communion the guests were asked to contemplate their relationship with Jesus and told that the Bride and Groom would be delighted to talk with them if they had questions...but after the honeymoon! (They had waited in purity for this brief time before he had to report back to duty.)

Music was provided by the fathers. A CD for the procession/recession, but communion music was a gift from both fathers to their children. Groom's dad wrote and sang it, Bride's dad arranged it and played the accompaniment.

Not being of rank to use a sword to cut the cake, the groom's father, an inactive Marine, brought out our son's K-Bar, the Marine combat knife...cleaned and shined for the occasion and 'ceremoniously' held it out like a wine sommalier would extend a wine bottle for approval. Our son drew it out of its sheath and they proceeded to take their first cut. That little twist on tradtion brought many chuckles from the guests.

Hope these ideas are helpful!

Wow - Great
by: Anonymous

We are planning a budget about the same as yours in just over a year. Sounds like this was was elegant as well as reasonable. Thankfully my daughter is very budget minded and already looking for those bargains. Money doesn't buy happiness or a "better" wedding. Thanks for sharing all of these details.

Wants A Soul-Winning Wedding

by J
(USA)

I would like my wedding to be classy & soul winning (calling people to Christ) please send me ideas?

******
The only thing I can think of would be to have the pastor preach a short message and give an altar call, but that really does not belong at a wedding in most cases. I have seen it done before, just as at some funerals and it seems out of place and causes the wedding to drag out, sometimes further alienating the unsaved loved ones that you were hoping would come to Christ. Sometimes they interpret this as Christ being further shoved down their throats. So you have to be careful.

You might want to have special music that tells of God's love. You can have something read while you do a cord of 3 strands or a unity candle ceremony. Sometimes just letting those ideas speak to people through the Holy Spirit is better than any sermon. Remember that the way you live, act, and speak is a better sermon than any they will hear so make sure you are walking the walk and talking the talk!
I am sorry I don't have any better ideas. I wish you all of the best on your upcoming marriage. Thank you for visiting my web site!

Juanita

Red Carpet For The Bride

by Anonymous
(USA)

When does the red carpet for the bride get rolled out as it is mentioned below?

******
At the wedding I went to where they rolled out the red carpet for the bride, all of the attendants and bridesmaids walked down first and then a man rolled the carpet down the aisle so that only the bride and her father walked on it. The way they did it was very stylish but it made it seem like she was royalty or something and no one else was good enough...It was quite dramatic. Great for a Hollywood star, I suppose, but I did not feel it was appropriate for a church wedding. Others may feel differently. After all that fuss, the marriage did not last more than two years which was really sad.
Juanita

red carpet
by: Anonymous

This isn't done to show that the bride is "better" than the rest. It is done for practicality. After spending hundreds of dollars on a dress, who wants it dragging on the floor before the ceremony and the Bride is PURE, no "dirt" clinging to her, it is a way of symbolizing this.

***I disagree. A red carpet says "Hollywood" and not purity. White says purity. This wedding that I referred to was all about show. You really had to be there for the full effect! Juanita

You Have A Great Site!

by Anonymous
(USA)

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! I am getting married
in Feb 09 and have spent hundreds of hours searching the internet for ideas for my Christian wedding. I came upon your site today via Google search for
wedding cord of 3 strands ceremony and was tickled pink. Finally, someone who gets it and thinks spending $20K on a wedding is totally nuts. Finally, someone who doesn't
keep trying to persuade me to offer alcoholic drinks at the reception. Finally, someone who knows what a fingerfood reception is and gives great useful tips on
catering it yourself! Thank you so much for putting this site together. It's a true delight.

Thank You For The Encouragement!
by: Juanita

Thank you so much for the encouragement that you have given to me. You have no idea how much emails like yours mean. I am so glad that I could be of help to hundreds of brides each month.

You are welcome. The site was so much fun to build. I enjoy being of help to others. However, due to the Google Panda release of October 2011, I have pulled the site down as my traffic took a huge hit. Instead of earning decent money like I had been, I was down to make pennies a day because my pages were no longer shown on Google. After 5 years of countless hours of building it and helping many brides, it was costing me more to keep it up than it was to pull it down. So sad...Thanks, Google Panda!

Pink Wedding Dresses

by Norma
(El Paso)

I just read the November/Dec 2008 issue of Brides Magazine. There is an article with a ton of photos of various shades and amounts of pink wedding dresses to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

This is a good idea but the pink wedding dresses shown cost thousands of dollars. Most of us cannot afford to spend that much. Who can afford to spend $4500 or so on a dress?

Those of us who are not rich can buy an inexpensive wedding gown, make a donation to the foundation, and still spend a whole lot less than the designer gowns.

You can go to http://www.brides.com/fashion/dresses/feature/article/179302
and read about it. There are 20 dresses in this promotion and according to the website, the donation will be made whether the dress is ordered in pink, ivory, or white.

How much they will donate to the foundation is not mentioned. The website just says a percentage will be given.

Pink Wedding Dresses For Breast Cancer
by: Juanita

Norma,
I saw that as well. Pink wedding dresses for breast cancer charity is great, but it is only for the rich. All of the 20 or so wedding dresses are in the 4 digit cost and who can afford that? Even if I could, I would not spend $1000 or more on a one day dress. I could not in all good conscience as that would be a waste of money. So it is nice for the rich who can afford it and the money is going to a great cause. But designers should be able to allow those of us who are not rich to contribute as well...Thanks.

Getting Married In Bakersfield!

by Stacey L Barnett
(Bakersfield CA)

I met a wonderful guy that I love and adore and now we are getting married! I'm not exactly sure of the date but I think it's February 8th 2009.

Bakersfield Wedding
by: Juanita

Stacey,
Best wishes on your engagement! Congratulations to Jon. I hope the two of you will be very happy as you plan your wedding.

So you are getting married in Bakersfield. I have a close friend living in Bakersfield; she is like a mom to me so that is neat.

Now the decisions begin on where to have the ceremony and reception and what things to include. Don't let it overwhelm you. Have fun planning each step of your wedding! Please continue to share if you would like as you go along.

Wedding Arch In The Church

by Carolyn
(Uvalde)

I went to my sister-in-law's wedding inside a beautiful church and she had a gold-colored wedding arch in the church. I thought they were only for outdoor weddings. It looked very nice. The pastor stood behind it and the bride and groom stood under it for the ceremony.

They left it plain. No flowers, tulle or anything in the spaces. It looked pretty, but I thought it was just a little strange to have it inside the church. I have seen wedding arches outside at many weddings but never before had I seen one inside the sanctuary.

Wedding Arches
by: Juanita

Hi Carolyn.

Usually, wedding arches are used in outdoor weddings. Some are plain lattice work, others have elaborately wood carvings on them, like chuppas, used in Jewish weddings.

But you do see the occasional wedding arch inside the church during a wedding. Sometimes, it looks very natural and fits in with the wedding decor. Other times, depending on the sanctuary decor, the colors and the wedding decorations, it can seem very much out of place. But to each her own.

So if your sister in law was happy having an arch that looked strange, so be it. It is her wedding and she will have to live with it in the photos.

Red Carpet At Wedding

by Denise
(El Paso)

I attended the wedding of a friend and thought I was at the wedding of royalty. The guests were all seated in the church. The mother of the bride came in. Then, the wedding party came down the aisle--maid of honor, bridesmaids, flower girl and then some woman rolled a red carpet right down the aisle and the bride and her father then came down the red carpet to "Here Comes The Bride". It was one of the strangest and most bizarre things I have ever seen at a Christian wedding in a Nazarene church. The bride and groom were both members of this church. I had been Nazarene my whole life and had been to many Christian weddings but this was a first.

The red carpet being rolled down just for the bride was too much. Oh, by the way, the bride left the groom after just two years of marriage. He was heartbroken that she just packed and moved out of state to go and live with relatives. It was so sad, especially after all of that royalty treatment. (There was a lot more than just the red carpet.)

I guess if you want a red carpet at the wedding, it would be okay, but I feel that it should have been rolled out prior to any of the wedding party or even the guests arriving. The way they did it, it was like the bride was too good to step on the already beautiful carpet in the church but it was okay for her wedding party and guests to walk on.

Red Carpet Wedding
by: Juanita

Wow! A red carpet wedding? Whose wedding did you attend, Princess Diana's? Like you, I believe that if a bride is going to have a red carpet wedding, the carpet should be rolled out ahead of time, not during the ceremony.

I think it has an air of "I am too good and way better than you" to wait until everyone has walked down the aisle and then roll out the red carpet for the bride, especially in a Christian wedding.

It sounds very royal or very Hollywood, but not very Christian, not at all humble, that is for sure. As a bride, I would have felt embarrassed to do this at my wedding. But again, to each her own. After all, it was her wedding so she could do whatever she wanted as long as she or Daddy could afford it!

Unity Candle Song

by Jennifer
(El Paso)

While my husband and I lit our unity candle during our ceremony, we had a friend sing a unity candle song. It was actually the song, "There Is Love". We felt that it would take too long and might bore the guests if they had to sit through a solo and then sit through us lighting our unity candle too.

We had our friend sing while we lit the candles. Then we just stood facing each other by the candle and waited for the solo to finish. When she finished the unity candle song, we went back over to the pastor, who continued the ceremony.

It worked well and cut the ceremony by at least 5 minutes. It also looked very romantic for us to stare into each other's eyes while we listened to beautiful music. It was a great ceremony and a great day.

There Is Love
by: Juanita

You won't believe this, but we did the same thing for our wedding. We lit our Unity Candle during the singing of There Is Love. That is a great Christian wedding song so I guess it is sung at a lot of weddings. We did not want to have to stand there and do nothing while the solo was going on so we incorporated both. But the words to that song are so meaningful, that we listened while we lit the candle. Thank you for sharing that. We chose the Unity Candle because I had seen it done at a few weddings and I thought it would be nice. I still have my unity candle. However, if I had known about the Cord of 3 Strands or the Sand Ceremony at the time, I might have chosen one of those instead. I only recently heard about either of those.

There Is Love On The Beach
by: Julie

We had a beach wedding in San Diego. While my sisters sang "There Is Love", we mixed our sand into a unity sand vase. Rob poured blue sand and I poured white. We chose these two colors to go with the ocean. There is love is the perfect Christian wedding song. What a beautiful message.

We keep our unity sand vase on a shelf in our den, along with a wedding day photo of the two of us and a framed invitation from our wedding, which was almost two years ago now. We are expecting our first child and are so incredibly happy, much more so than we ever thought possible. A beach wedding using a unity sand ceremony and the song, There Is Love were perfect choices for our wedding.

Thank you for this wonderful site. My sister found it and showed it to me. She is getting married this summer. I wish your site had been up when I was planning my wedding in 2006! Thanks for all you do.

Thanks
by: Anonymous

Great Idea! I think I'll do that during our sand ceremony. I have a friend with a beautiful voice and was trying to figure out when and what to have her sing. Thanks for the tip!