Civil Ceremony, how does it differ?

Malari

Package wrote: »

ok, im NOT trying to categorise it. Im tryin to get the point across that although it may fall under a "religious" ceremony. There does not have to be anything religious at all. So when someone hears the words "religious ceremony" it doesnt necessarily make it religious in content. clear now?

I DO perform the ceremonies. I dont feel the need to explain to the couples under what HSE catagory they fall under, as im sure most of them have checked the website, anyway, most people dont care what catagory the "spiritual ceremony" falls under, what they do care about is that they can choose the tie/content/music/readings ect, ,and thats the point i was trying to make.

I certainly would, if I was having a civil ceremony. As far as I'm concerned any mention of the afterlife, or having someone watch over, or feeling like there's something out there, is very religious in content even if no specific gods are mentioned. Religious encompasses spiritual as far as I'm concerned.

King Krib

Sleepy wrote: »

We had the Spiritualist Union of Ireland perform our ceremony in our hotel. We had a string trio play a Bob Dylan song while my wife's father walked her down the "aisle", the celebrant welcomed our guests, we performed a sand ceremony which we were able to include the kids in (the celebrant explained the significance of the sand ceremony prior to this), we then took our (self penned) vows, exchanged rings and the trio played a Metallica Song as we signed the registrar followed by a Journey song as we walked back down the "aisle" together.

Whole thing lasted about 20 minutes and we got a lot of positive comments on it from guests (including quite a few teasing my wife that the ceremony was shorter than the wait!). Althought there wasn't a single mention of spirits, gods, angels, demons or flying spaghetti monsters, legally, it would be classified as a religious marriage as the Spiritualists are licensed to perform weddings as a religious organisation. Luckily they're a lot more open minded than a lot of the other religions in this country and are quite happy to perform non-religious weddings for those of us who want them but don't fancy a mid-week wedding.

We had an SUI ceremony for our wedding recently, Tom Colton was the solemniser. It was fantastic, all comments were very positive. The ceremony is basically a blank canvas to be personalised by you. This is the way forward. .

Package

lazygal wrote: »

If I was looking into someone to perform a ceremony I'd want to know which category they fall under as me and my husband aren't religious and wouldn't want a ceremony falling under a 'religious' heading.

well the thing is,, im massively anti religious. cant stand it, and hate all things religious. so i suppose the content of the ceremony would matter to me rather than whats written on a piece of paper in a drawer, in the HSE office, miles away from where i am having my wedding.. just my thoughts.

Malari wrote: »

I certainly would, if I was having a civil ceremony. As far as I'm concerned any mention of the afterlife, or having someone watch over, or feeling like there's something out there, is very religious in content even if no specific gods are mentioned. Religious encompasses spiritual as far as I'm concerned.

We as said in this thread loads of times, if you didnt want any of that mentioned, then we wouldnt mention it.

Malari wrote: »

Religious encompasses spiritual as far as I'm concerned

couldnt be further from the truth

Malari

Package wrote: »

couldnt be further from the truth

I don't think I'm far from the truth at all. Spiritual is something that's hard to define but there's a distinct religious or mystical association with most interpretations.

evilmonkee

Package wrote: »

well the thing is,, im massively anti religious. cant stand it, and hate all things religious. so i suppose the content of the ceremony would matter to me rather than whats written on a piece of paper in a drawer, in the HSE office, miles away from where i am having my wedding.. just my thoughts.

If you were anti-religion why would you want a wedding under the heading of religion? I mean, for statistical purposes you chose to have a religious wedding. Thus adding to number of religious people in the country, and adding to the pro-religion numbers. I'm not personally against religion, but I dont think that being anti-religion and having a religious classified wedding go hand in hand....

Whether you think its religious or not isn't going to make any difference when the numbers are being counted! The HSE will not phone you up and say "Hey, you know your wedding? Well its classified as religious but we just wanted to check if it included religious content? No? Oh, ok, I'll put it down as secular so..."

lazygal

Package wrote: »

well the thing is,, im massively anti religious. cant stand it, and hate all things religious. so i suppose the content of the ceremony would matter to me rather than whats written on a piece of paper in a drawer, in the HSE office, miles away from where i am having my wedding.. just my thoughts.

If you're anti religious, why do you perform religious ceremonies? Surely humanist ceremonies would suit your beliefs or lack thereof?

As a prospective client I would not be happy to have the fact that you perform religious ceremonies (whatever their content)under the auspices of what is classed as a religious organization hidden or brushed aside and I would wonder why you as a celebrant would stand over such ceremonies as an anti religious person.

Why do you think its okay not to mention that your ceremonies are classed as religious? Do you think its something that might put clients off?

DeadParrot

I'm having a bit of a mental disconnect with a secular wedding performed by a self proclaimed medium.
Anyone help me here?

lazygal

DeadParrot wrote: »

I'm having a bit of a mental disconnect with a secular wedding performed by a self proclaimed medium.
Anyone help me here?

Let me consult my crystals, tarot cards and the stars and get back to you.

Package

well if the points you are trying to make are going down that road sure whats the point??

im not going to get into a silly debate over it..

My spin on being a spiritualist is that if YOU are happy, then I am happy.

So are you all happy?

then good,, you may now go in peace to praise the lord, and such and such

Sleepy

DeadParrot wrote: »

I'm having a bit of a mental disconnect with a secular wedding performed by a self proclaimed medium.
Anyone help me here?

The HSE won't do weekend weddings and many of us don't like asking friends and family to use their annual leave to attend a mid-week wedding.

Until the middle of this year, the only option available for a weekend wedding that didn't include religion in the ceremony was to avail of the fact the Spiritualist Union of Ireland were prepared to put their own religious aside and perform secular weddings for people. They're also far more flexible on the content and nature of the ceremony you want to go with the legalities than the HSE are.

Now that the Humanists are licensed to perform weddings, I imagine they'll fill this section of the market.