Planning a Christ-Centered Wedding!

To celebrate our two-year wedding anniversary, I thought it would make sense to write a post on marriage!  I've been thinking about our wedding often (What were we doing at this time two years ago?!) and it truly was a beautiful day.  We know that marriage is a blessing to be celebrated, and also an amazing opportunity to be a picture of Christ and His Church, and we wanted our wedding to reflect that.  So I thought I would share a few of the ways we aimed to make our wedding Christ-centered:

•  Make your ceremony an open invitation!  Often logistics and costs mean that you can't invite everyone you want to to your reception - but often this isn't the case with the ceremony.  Make an event on Facebook, put a note in your church bulletin, email old friends and mentors - and invite them to come celebrate with you.  Weddings are joyous times and our culture is seeing less and less of them.  Give as many people as you can the opportunity to come and remember that marriages are created by God, and a wedding is a beautiful thing.  

• Use your vows to demonstrate the different roles of a husband and wife, and how they reflect Christ and His Church.  We used the traditional vows as well as writing our own unique ones:
• Stephanie, with God's help, I promise to:
• always protect both you and those under our roof.
• always provide for you.
• always sanctify you with the washing of the Word of God.
• lead our family in family worship.
• be caring, listening, calm, not quick-tempered, not given to drink, not violent, not greedy for money.
• be hospitable and sober minded.
• never to leave you or forsake you, for all my days.
  
• Andrew, with God's help, I promise to:
• pray with you and for you.
• submit joyfully to your leadership as does the church to Christ.
• help raise our children in the training and instruction of the Lord, with love and grace.
• make ours a home of warmth and joy always open to others.
• trust you and be worthy of your trust.
• never to leave you or forsake you, for all my days.
  

• Andrew spoke briefly at our wedding on Ephesians 5.  Now I obviously do not think it is mandatory for the husband to speak, but it was a neat way to acknowledge that he is the spiritual head of the home.  From the first moments of our marriage, Andrew was using the Word of God to encourage and exhort me.  I knew before I married him, but it was obvious in this action, that Andrew would not take lightly the position God had granted him. 

• We shared our first kiss on our wedding day.  Along with the obvious reason of fleeing from temptation of sexual sin before we were married, we also hoped to be a light in a dark world  that purity does matter and is beautiful.   I was certainly nervous about having my first kiss in front of all those people, but I can say honestly that it was wonderful!  It gave real meaning to "You may now kiss the bride!" and certainly lent an intensified air of excitement to the ceremony.

• We invited our family and friends to join with the pastor in praying for us and our marriage.  Marriage was created by God, and so it makes sense that Satan hates marriages and seeks to destroy them.  Thus marriages should be bathed in prayer, by the spouses certainly, but it is also a wonderful gift to a married couple to be praying for them before, during, and after their wedding ceremony.  Having a prayer involving the guests at the ceremony can help them to see the importance of their prayers to your marriage. 

How did you make your wedding meaningful? Or how have you seen it done at other weddings?

Linked up at A Mama's Story, Raising Arrows, The Modest Mom, What Joy Is Mine,  Growing Home, Above Rubies,  Deep Roots At Home, Raising Homemakers, We Are That Family, Walking Redeemed, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, Graced Simplicity, Raising Mighty Arrows