A Simple Ceremony

Sand Ceremony

This element can be included in your ceremony at any point: in the beginning as the introduction, or either before or after saying vows. Other family members may also be included, as in the second example that follows.

Sand Ceremony

Standing together never means dissolving your individual selves into each other, but it strengthens the individuality of each. A good marriage evolves when two distinct individuals face life's joy and its sorrow in harmony, not necessarily in unison.

While officiant reads the following lines, the couple alternates pouring their sand into the central vessel.

When you combine your lives in marriage, it is as combining these two vessels of sand into one. Separately they represent who you are as individuals: your personality, your friends and families, your hopes and dreams, all you are, all you have ever been and all you have the potential to become.

When united in marriage, you retain all of yourselves and all of your individuality, but also become a new entity, a new family. As you pour your layers of sand together, never again can they truly be separated, and so will it be with your marriage.

Sand Ceremony Including Family Members

Bride and Groom, please step this way and stand side by side facing the vessels of sand. Will the parents (children/siblings/others) of the bride and groom please join us at the table.

Standing together never means dissolving your individual selves into each other, but it strengthens the individuality of each. A good marriage evolves when two distinct individuals face life's joy and its sorrow in harmony, not necessarily in unison.

When you combine your lives in marriage, it is as combining these vessels of sand into one. Separately they represent who you are as individuals: your personality, your friends and families, your hopes and dreams, all you are, all you have ever been and all you have the potential to become.

When united in marriage, you retain all of yourselves and all of your individuality, but also become a new entity, together.

These loved ones closest to you are here to give their love and support, and to symbolize their interconnectedness with you by also pouring layers of sand into the central vessel before you.

As you pour your layers of sand, never again can they truly be separated, and so will it be with your lives in marriage.

Family members and bride and groom alternate pouring their sand as desired to create a unique piece of sand art. This can be done several different ways. Parents or grandparents may wish to provide the first layers of the bride and groom's sand, and the couple pours the remaining amounts for themselves. Children of the couple may wish to include their own separate color of sand in alternating layers.