Announcing a totally new way of getting married

A Bold New Era in Wedding Ceremonies is about to commence.
A revolution, in fact.
The first rethink of Wedding Ceremonies for more than 1,000 years.
Next-Gen: The Reimagined Wedding.

Up until now, regardless of where or how you tie the knot - in a church, at the Registry Office, or with a modern celebrant - you follow a script that's been around for over 1000 years! A script that still echoes the patriarchal vibes of medieval times. A script that has been tweaked and shows signs of some minor evolution, but no radical change:

• From the 1100 hundreds, the only way to get married in the West was in church. In a ceremony laid down by the Catholic Church. When the Reformation came, the Church of England followed the same formula:

• Priest in starring role
• Couple in very much a subordinate role
• And patriarchal values on display and reinforced
  

• In the 1830s, when Government decided to centralise marriage registration it turned to the Church of England ceremony to set the stage for the introduction of civil ceremonies. Same formula, just with the religious content deleted.
  

• And by 1973, here in Australia, when the Celebrant program came into being, civil celebrants used the same non-religious ceremony, with their own twist, without changing the essential script.

It was tweaking, not disrupting!

Why a Next-Gen Ceremony?

The Next-Gen ReImagined Wedding Ceremony is the culmination of my 18 years of analysing the subliminal messages of current civil ceremonies by looking closely at the way civil ceremonies have been structured and conducted in Australia, while at the same time delving into the history of marriage ceremonies.

Progressively over the years I have introduced subtle changes to the ceremony script in order to address
gender role stereotyping taken for granted in times past.

But that process could only go so far. A new approach, a new vision of what a marriage ceremony between two people, regardless of gender, was needed.

The Revolution begins! Announcing Next-Gen: The ReImagined Wedding Ceremony.

A wedding ceremony for the 21st century. With none of the drawbacks or issues that are still attached to the "usual wedding ceremony"

How is a ReImagined Wedding Ceremony different from the contemporary wedding ceremonies we are used to?

What we regard to be the contemporary wedding ceremony has its basis in the traditional religious wedding ceremony. Over the past 50 years the traditional wedding ceremony has been "modernised" by civil celebrants using one or both of two approaches:

• taking something away, or
  
• retaining but tweaking something.

Generally, modernisation has been accomplished by recasting religious content as non-religious, and/or personal and/or substituting the unexpected for the expected.

However, it has been a glass half empty approach because it does not change the underlying values that have remained unchanged for 1000+ years. The patriachal DNA of the original remains visible.

The Next-Gen ReImagined Wedding Ceremony goes back to basics:

• How did people marry before the Christian Church took over?
• What does Australian law require for a marriage to be legal?
  

The answer is simple. Couples married themselves by making a declaration in front of witnesses. You marry yourselves by the words you say. No permission required. No intermediary with the power to marry you needed.

Your celebrant's role is to co-ordinate the required legal paperwork. speak the legally mandated words to identify themselves as having the authority to solemnise your marriage, recite the legal definition of marriage as the union of two people, and supervise the ceremony (that is, solemnise your marriage).

The Next-Gen ReImagined Wedding Ceremony is also

• infinitely scaleable
• inclusive of your guests
• suitable for all couples, regardless of gender
  
• not in any way dependent on the personality of your celebrant

Further information