[Cupcakes]

My fiancé and I are being married by my best friend who is getting ordained for the ceremony, and we are basically writing our entire ceremony. We are both playful and young at heart (for example, our honeymoon is Disney World)so we want to make this ceremony fit our relationship and our personalities, but we also don't want it to come across too silly or not be taken seriously, so we need some advice on how to incorporate some of our ideas in a way that will be cohesive, classy and tasteful.

While my fiance and I are not particularly religious, his family is very much so and my parents are a bit. It doesn't seem that his parents mind that we are not being married in a church or by their minister, but we still know that it would make them happy if we involved some sort of religious aspect. How can we do that without making the whole ceremony like a church ceremony? We were thinking of making just one of the readings a passage from the bible or something similar, and perhaps including something along the lines of "promise before God" in the vows? Our other reading is a little book called "A Lovely Love Story", which has significance to us but perhaps it would be good to use a more formal/traditional reading as well?

[Nancy Tucker]

I am no writing expert but for the greatest Love promises and directions look to the Holy Bible, I Corinthians 13 and incorporate the thoughts there without quoting. Also a biblical reading along with your special reading should make the ceremony serious enough without making it preachy.