Civil v Humanist v spiritualist ceremony

Fitzc

Hi, we're hoping to get married next summer but unsure what form we want the ceremony to take so looking for some advice. We don't want a religious ceremony but I have only ever been to traditional RC church weddings so unsure of the alternatives.

I was leaning towards humanist but my partner reckons he is definitely not a humanist as he does believe in a greater power (just can't pinpoint what That Is!). So that lead me towards spiritualist ceremony but I don't want it to be all airy/fairy and full of angel talk. Civil ceremony seems a bit too impersonal & rigid in what is allowed (& we'ld struggle to get a slot for next June now anyways).

Hoping I have preconceived misconceptions so that we may come up with an answer. Ideally I would like the legal element to be part of the ceremony as don't want to have to do it over two days.

GingerLily

I think you should go for spiritualist - humanist is the wrong ceremony for you and as you said civil is too impersonal.
You could consider an interfaith ceremony as well?

Talk to a spiritualist solemniser, I'm sure they'll be happy to make a ceremony with you that you're happy with and that isn't "Airy Fairy".

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DaeryssaOne

We had a humanist ceremony this year and had pretty much free reign over what we wanted the celebrant to actually say. We could pick particular opening introductions, whatever music, poems, readings etc. that we wanted to include once there was no real mention of god.

If your partner does believe in a higher power then it does sound like a spiritualist ceremony could be more suited for you. From what I've heard you can also pick and choose what you want to include and keep out any 'airy fairy' references so my advice would be to contact a spiritualist and meet up with them soon to discuss how you would like the ceremony to be.

pooch90

We had a spiritualist ceremony with zero Spiritualism in it. They are very accommodating and we wrote the whole thing ourselves. We had originally booked a Humanist celebrant but found the Spiritualists much easier to deal with and less in demand too.

muckwarrior

Interfaith basically covers "all religions and none". They're also very accommodating about what you include/exclude from the ceremony.

We originally thought about booking a spiritualist celebrant after an available humanist one proved difficult to find. We submitted an enquiry to their website and within minutes got a booking confirmation and request for payment. This prompted to do some more research on them and led to us finding stuff like this http://www.michaelnugent.com/2012/12/31/psychic-mediums-people-who-lie-to-state-inquiries-and-debt-defaulters-can-solemnise-irish-marriages-but-not-atheists/

StringerBell

We had a humanist ceremony, it is the same as a civil ceremony basically without the religious aspect.

You can customise it though to your own needs also, we had some readings and music etc, very nice. The ceremony was conducted by a very helpful lady. Would highly recommend it.

Had looked at the spiritualist one also, the inviting peoples dead relatives in attendance to feel welcomed and stuff put the partner off though, Im sure you can customise that also.

scarepanda

We had a spiritualist ceremony only a few weeks ago. I was initially hesitant on going with a spiritualist as we didn't want anything airy fairy, we just wanted a neutral ceremony with no agendas, which seems to be very hard to come by. Anyways, the hotel recommended our lady to us and we honestly couldn't be any happier with both the ceremony and the lady herself. In my first email I asked her straight if she would have any issues with doing a non religious ceremony, which she thankfully didn't. We were able to do Whatever we wanted as part of the ceremony, music, readings etc. And for her part she made the ceremony so personal to us, our life together and our daughter, who she included and was as a part of the ceremony as we were which is what we wanted.

lazygal

We went humanist. No spiritual woo at all. I don't like the spiritualist union, it's a pretty odd set up and the ceremony is classed as religious.

Dermo

We went with a very small civil registry office wedding for the official stuff.
It freed us up to do our own custom ceremony on another day. The celebrant was one of my groomspeople and we put together our own ceremony. I would highly recommend this route.

rainbow kirby

lazygal wrote: »

We went humanist. No spiritual woo at all. I don't like the spiritualist union, it's a pretty odd set up and the ceremony is classed as religious.

Same here. Didn't want any sort of religious ceremony.

DavyD_83

We went humanist, and as above had total free reign over the script for the day.
I think this may vary depending on the celebrant though.

I have attended humanist weddings where the celebrant gave a big introduction about humanism and what it meant etc etc. This could have bene on request of the couple to put some religious minds at ease that it wasn't a purely heathen ceremony, but it had the feeling of being how the celebrant liked to start things himself.
To me, it reminded me of a lot of priests' tendencies in RC wedding to make it all about himself and god rather than the couple.
But I think this can happen in any type of wedding.

irishgirl19

We had an interfaith ceremony! It was lovely. Interfaith recognises all religions and none :-)
Our minister was so nice and open to anything in the ceremony

ShaShaBear

We had a civil ceremony and it was by no means rigid! We were given a myriad of options for how we wanted to do it, were told where we could slot in readings/poems/songs etc of our choosing and were given three options for "binding" the marriage. Traditional ring exchange, tying of the hands or candle lighting. We went stripped bare, no religious elements whatsoever and the very basic words and everyone thought it was beautiful. It was the first civil marriage ceremony in my family and everyone was shocked at how beautifully it was delivered - us included!