How to Stay Connected When You Want Different Things From Your Wedding Ceremony

Charlie

Today I’m handing over to Joy Justice, founder of Rooted Ceremonies, to talk about how to stay connected when you want different things from your wedding ceremony.

This post is for those moments when wedding planning starts to feel less like joyful decision-making and more like “why are we arguing about this?”. It’s a gentle reminder that disagreement isn’t a sign you’re doing anything wrong. Written by a celebrant with a background in mediation, it explores what’s often sitting underneath those differences and offers ways to approach them with more curiosity, understanding and compassion.

Over to Joy from Rooted Ceremonies to tell us more…

This article was written by guest contributor Joy Justice of Rooted Ceremonies. Views and experiences shared are their own. With thanks to Maureen Du Preez for the beautiful photographs to accompany this post.

How to stay connected when you want different things from your wedding ceremony

It’s such a common thing to find yourself in disagreement with your partner about your wedding plans, because you are two different people with two different personalities, organising a really significant event where you are both going to be the centre of attention! You may also be feeling the pressure of meeting other people’s expectations or needs, and including their opinions. It can soon feel like a big stress and not what you believed it would feel like at all!

If this is your experience, I hear you! I would like to encourage you and share some tools with you. I write these from my experiences as a mediator and facilitator of difficult group dynamics, as well as a wedding celebrant. Working with a sensitive and attentive celebrant and/or wedding planner, is a great way of having some support to be held while you listen to one another and come back on the same page.

Now for the tools:

Trust and Disagreement

It is not a bad thing to disagree! When you are in a relationship that involves a high level of trust, you will probably find that you bounce around between disagreement and agreement on lots of topics- ranging from small things like sponges and cutlery drawers, to big things like raising children and life after death.

Perhaps you’ve observed that over time within your relationship, there are more things that you disagree on, compared to when you first got together. This is probably because your trust has grown over time, and you have learnt to show your truer selves and not be afraid that you’ll put one another off!

When it comes from a place of mutual trust, disagreement is a healthy thing because it indicates that you feel safe enough to express your true opinions and opens the doorway to explore what lies underneath- be that your core values, fears and insecurities, or prior experiences.