I'm going to try to post as many DIY things I did for my wedding, both to document it for my own sake, and so that others can see how fun it is to do things differently to make your wedding extra-special!
Some things we did to make our wedding "ours":
-We decided to go with an evening ceremony, for a more formal feel
-We had all desserts at the reception...yum:)
-Our son, Rory, was the Honorary Best Man
-Our high school teacher, track coach, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader officiated our ceremony
-We asked all of our guests to wear the "something blue"
-My cousin Nick, sang "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz as we walked down the aisle, we had all recorded music for everything, and no piano or organ.
He also sang the Lord's Prayer during our Unity Ceremony...And that's what this post is about, the Unity Ceremony. The Unity Candle is the most basic of Unity Ceremonies, I have seen the sand, and even a Unity Cross, but I wasn't feeling any of those. It just wasn't me.
Then I came across this "Off the Beaten Path Unity Ceremony" Pin on Pinterest from It's a Brides Life Blog.
This sounded so great with me being an Art Education major, and loving painting, and I had only seen it in this one place! The one problem with this was because this is such an original idea, it was hard to find much input from anyone on how to do it!
So I did some research, asked around, and finally decided just to test it out before the wedding!
1. Test run is a must
(This was a really good idea, because then we used the image that we tried it out on as a decoration at the wedding, and so that guests had an idea of what we were doing while we were actually making our Unity Painting during the ceremony.)
To test it out the most important thing was figuring out how to mix the paints. We used Acrylic Paints from Michaels. Because our colors were navy and gray/silver, we had to mix both of them to get the correct shades to match everything else.
My formula was not scientific by any means, but I kept track of about how much of each color paint I mixed, as well as how much water. It ended up being about 1/3 water, and 2/3 paint, but it is important that you test out the brand of paint that you buy, as well as the type of container that you put it in!
Our bottles were tall and skinny, and did not have large openings, so that paint had to be more watered down than a cup would have to be. Again-TEST IT OUT- get a feel for how the paint pours and what you have to do to make it go where you want it to go. It will also help with nerves on the day of, and you can talk to your partner about it as you go!
2. Punch pourer? no. Paint mixer? Yes!
This is important because you do not want to be mixing paint in your wedding dress. NO WAY. Plus, do you really think you have time for that! NO! Our wedding didn't start until 5:30 PM and we started getting ready at 10AM- the day flew by!
Anyway, find someone who has experience with paints to mix your paint. Write down your scientific (not :) ) formula for them and discuss how the paint should look, show them your practice run, that kind of thing. Set up a time for when they can mix it and tell them where to put it! This is a time and stress saver for you, I promise!
Also- don't forget to ask the church if it's okay to do this. We laid down a protective clear covering that stuck to the floor that you can find in a roll at a hardware store, (Menards).
3. The real deal : Unity Ceremony
Karic's paint didn't come out as smoothly as possible, and he had to give the bottle a couple smacks to get it started. We had a little laugh, didn't panic, and kept going!
We decided for our Unity Ceremony not to have a plan of a certain image we would make, but just to have it be abstract. But I'm sure you all could come up with something if you wanted to! Initials, heart, cross-- depending on your colors you might come up with something else!
4. Hang your paintings
Here is a list of things you may need for your Unity Painting:
Canvas (any size you would like, ours were 18x24)
Acrylic paints
Water
Containers to pour from
Funnels (to pour paint from bottle to bottle)
Protective clear plastic
Easel or prop for canvas
Rags
Happy Wedding Planning!
-J