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Summary: Weddings from the Heart : Contemporary and Traditional Cerem
Review: An excellent book for those planning a nondenominational wedding. With a keen interest in spirituality and creativity, hours of searching at libraries and bookstores lead us to this book. Kingma recognizes that every wedding ceremony is unique and offers the food for thought that many need to formulate a meaningful event. She defines "types" of marriages the first section. As one might expect of any relationship, we found that while none applied exclusively, there was some meaning in each. This exercise helped us engage our officiant in a thought and discovery process about our vision for a ceremony. The descriptions of traditions from various cultures stimulated our creativity; the outline of traditional western wedding components offered structure; and a list of readings included one of our final choice readings (adapted from the Christian Bible in an amazingly polically correct manner).
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Summary: The most spiritual writer on relationships and weddings
Review: Daphne Rose is one of the most inspired writers on relationships I have ever read, first of all. Her wedding book is absolutely incredible for the alternative ideas for weddings and for the inspiration for people who aren't mainstream religous. I am Wiccan and my husband is Catholic, I used this book to write my wedding and I recommend this book to anyone writing their wedding - expecially if you have alternative views.
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Summary: A must if you are writing your own wedding ceremony!
Review: I have found this book a great resource in preparing for Wedding Ceremonies. I have conducted over three hundred weddings in South Australia and this book is one that I recommend to couples who are searching for inspirational material. The book is practical, down to earth and encourages couples to explore, discuss and develop their own thoughts from a wide range of example material. Worth a read!
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Summary: Comments from a Marriage Celebrant
Review: I have found this book a great resource in preparing for Wedding Ceremonies. I have conducted over three hundred weddings in South Australia and this book is one that I recommend to couples who are searching for inspirational material. The book is practical, down to earth and encourages couples to explore, discuss and develop their own thoughts from a wide range of example material. Worth a read!
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Summary: Not worth the trees killed to produce it.
Review: I ordered this book based on other Amazon readers' comments, and was horrified and disgusted at my choice. The suggested readings are very nice, since the author did not write any of them. The rest of the text is poorly written, silly psycho-babble. I doubt anyone wants their wedding benediction prayer to end with "depart with joy in your heart and happiness in your feet". I did get plenty of hearty laughs out of the suggested ceremonies, but unfortunately, no constructive assistance.
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Summary: Weddings from the Heart : Contemporary and Traditional Cerem
Review: I thought there were a nice collection of readings that I didn't see in other compilations. I found the ceremonies in Into the Garden much more to my liking.
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Summary: Nice readings
Review: I thought there were a nice collection of readings that I didn't see in other compilations. I found the ceremonies in Into the Garden much more to my liking.
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Summary: Building Blocks for a Beautiful Ceremony
Review: I was recently married in a Baha'i ceremony. In the Baha'i Faith, the only required/prescribed element is the one-line vow, "We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God." Other than that, we were on our own. The thing that made this book so incredibly helpful is that the author describes the various elements or building blocks of a wedding ceremony, e.g. processional, convocation, readings, vows, benediction, etc. We were able to easily adapt her "building blocks" by inserting writings and prayers from the Baha'i Faith, the New Testament, and other sources -- even a "family medallion" ceremony to honor my son! It was warm and wonderful and everyone tells us it was the most beautiful ceremony they'd ever seen. Yes, some of Kingma's suggested readings and speeches are corny -- we didn't use a single one of her suggested vows or writings. And her prose isn't as graceful as some I've seen. But if you want a book that is really helpful with the nitty-gritty, this is the one to have. We definitely couldn't have made our ceremony as meaningful and beautiful without this book. Buy it!
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Summary: Okay, depending on what you want
Review: Most of this book was irrelevant for what I wanted. I was looking for a source for religiously-oriented vows, prayers, and blessings which I could use to create an ecumenical wedding service. This book DOES have a section of such things --and I did find it useful for comparison purposes-- but the main emphasis is on contemporary vows, addresses, etc., most of which seemed just too fluffy for me. If you do want very emotionally-laden, "unique to you" and non-traditional wedding, go for this. If you seriously want to compare weddings from different Judeo-Christian traditions, I highly recommend _Weddings: A Complete Guide to All Religious and Interfaith Marriage Services_ instead.
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Summary: A must if you are writing your own wedding ceremony!
Review: My fiance and I decided early on in the stages of planning our wedding that we wanted to write our own ceremony. We were getting married in a garden setting and wanted a ceremony that reflected our personalities, feelings and the joy we felt at being together and committed for the rest of our lives.This book gave us so many great ideas on how first, to structure the ceremony, and then some of the wording we could use. We didn't copy any ceremony exactly, but the ideas that this book provides are great! I can't tell you how many people came up to us afterward and said it was the best wedding ceremony they had ever attended!
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