Secular Wedding Ceremony
Mr. Feather and I decided early in the planning process that we would write the script for our secular ceremony as well as our own vows. It was a ton of work, but absolutely worth it in the end to have a ceremony that included everything we felt strongly about. I’ve included a few snippets from our ceremony text—hopefully they can help another couple looking for something similar!

Welcome & Moment of Silence
We started our ceremony with some brief words of welcome and thanks for the role our family and friends have played in our lives, both together and apart. Almost all of our guests traveled from hundreds of miles away to watch us get hitched, which meant so, so much to us.

Next, we wanted to honor all the people in our lives who we had lost—mainly, Mr. Feather’s father, my Opa, my Grammie and Grandpa, and a childhood friend of mine who passed very suddenly a few weeks after Mr. Feather and I met. I debated for a long, long time about how to do this in a way that felt appropriate, without bringing down the mood of the ceremony, and finally decided on this wording: This is also a time to celebrate all of those who have touched our lives and are not able to be with us in person today, but are here in spirit. Let us remember them with a moment of silent reflection.

Declaration of Intent
I was initially a little fuzzy on what the declaration of intent was and why it mattered, but once I realized it was a public expr...