Final update 12/21: We are married!!! Our minister and honestly the whole congregation was so supportive, we couldn’t have imagined a better way to start our marriage :) I’m so, so grateful we found UU when we did so that we can continue to grow together within this community. Happy solstice!

Update 12/19: thanks so much to everyone who’s read our story and given suggestions! Please keep them coming, we love to grow our UU knowledge :)

Worship Web was a total game changer, what an incredible resource. I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of everything we’re deciding between but my favorite thing we found so far is this poem by Elizabeth Lerner Maclay:

“As drops of rain that find each other and build to become a track, a rivulet, a stream, a river, a sea, so are we drawn together; so are we fortunate to find each other; so are we bound together, on this shared passage toward an unknown ocean and eternity.”

Our minister’s script has a lot of emphasis on preserving individuality within a marriage, which is also very good and important, but we think adding this poem to our covenant helps highlight our interconnectedness as well :)

Original post:

Hello! I’m new to both UU as a whole and this particular sub, so I apologize if I'm breaking any community norms/re-asking something common. I did a quick search and didn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I did what any UU would and decided to convene a committee in reddit thread form :)

Long story short(ish): We decided yesterday (12/17/23) that we're getting married in our UU church on Thursday (12/21/23). Our minister wrote a beautiful plan, and we'd like to contribute with ideas or suggestions to personalize it a bit if possible. We're very new to UU though and not super familiar with all the literature/hymns yet. Any advice for music to include, essays/short pieces to read that might inspire some vows, and also any general wisdom on building a successful and happy UU life and marriage are welcome <3

Info that might help:

— We won’t have a live musician but there is a nice sound system, so if there’s a particularly good recording/version of a song we’d love to get a link :)

— My favorite hymn of the ones we've heard so far is My Life Flows on in Endless Song

— All 7 principles resonate with us in different ways, but we've connected most deeply with #7 (respect for the interdependent web of all existence)

Long story longer:

My fiancé and I have been attending our local UU church since early September, so a little over three months. Though that seems like so short a time written out, we've really found a home there and have become quite involved in various ways. We became official members of our congregation at the end of November, and we had already been thinking about how to incorporate our new faith community into our fall/winter '24 wedding.

We got word yesterday that my fiancé is part of a mass layoff, effective today. We're very privileged to have solid financial footing through my salary and our emergency savings, plus my fiancé was actually already in the process of a career transition and has good prospects to land on his feet soon (knock wood!)

That being said, I work in local government and have excellent benefits. We had already planned to add my fiancé to my health insurance when we got married next year, and had even discussed the possibility of having a courthouse ceremony a few months early if his career change might mean a lapse in coverage. I had done a bit of research on getting a marriage license in our county and even asked our minister if she might be able to officiate a small ceremony, but all on the assumption that we had many months to prepare.

That timeline is no longer feasible since my fiancé's last day of work is today and his benefits end on 12/31. Theoretically we could get married as late as 12/29 and get him on my plan in time, but with the bureaucratic standstill that is the last week of the year we’d rather not risk it. So, these overthinking hyperplanners need to act fast! We called the minister in a panic yesterday afternoon, and she graciously agreed to help us make our pseudo-shotgun wedding special and meaningful despite the circumstances. This Thursday has a nice numerical date (12/21, I like the symmetry) and it's the Winter Solstice, which is both a spiritually resonant day for us and means the sanctuary at Church will be decorated with pretty winter greenery. So, Thursday at 2pm it is!

A few family members are feeling some type of way about the whole situation, but we're trying to make the most of it and I'm excited to have UU play a bigger part in our wedding. We'll still be doing the "traditional" wedding as planned in late '24 to celebrate with all our loved ones, but we had already asked a close family member to officiate that ceremony before we even discovered UU, so I feel like now we get the best of both worlds.

We are so grateful to have found both UU as a whole and our local congregation in particular at the perfect time, and I hope this will be the first of many milestones and celebrations we will share with our beloved community :)

Thanks so anyone who read this far, and to anyone who has suggestions or advice as we catapult into this new chapter!

Hello! I found this subreddit literally 15 minutes ago, so I apologize if I'm breaking any community norms/re-asking something common. I tried to do a quick search and didn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I did what any UU would and decided to convene a committee in reddit thread form :)

​

Long story short(ish): We decided today (12/17/23) that we're getting married in our UU church on Thursday (12/21/23). Our minister is writing up a plan tomorrow, and we'd like to contribute with ideas or suggestions if we can. We're very new to UU though and not super familiar with all the literature/hymns yet. Any advice for music to include, essays/short pieces to read that might inspire some vows, and also any general advice on building a successful and happy UU life and marriage are welcome <3

​

Info that might help:

• My favorite hymn of the ones we've heard so far is My Life Flows on in Endless Song
• All 7 principles resonate with us in different ways, but we've connected most deeply with #7 (respect for the interdependent web of all existence)

​

Long story longer:

My fiancé (29M) and I (24F) have been attending our local UU church since early September, so a little over three months. Though that seems like so short a time written out, we've really found a home there and become quite involved in various ways. We became official members of our congregation at the end of November, and we had already been thinking about how to incorporate our new faith community into our November '24 wedding.

​

We got word today that the company where my fiancé has worked for the last two years is completely shutting down, effective tomorrow. There are definitely some potential labor law violations/general workers' rights issues that remain to be worked out, but that's somewhat besides the point for now. We're very privileged to have solid financial footing through my salary and our emergency savings, plus my fiancé was actually already in the process of a career transition and has good prospects to land on his feet soon (knock wood!)

​

That being said, I work in local government and have excellent benefits. We had already planned to add my fiancé to my insurance when we got married in November of next year, and had even discussed the possibility of having a courthouse ceremony a few months early if his career change might mean a lapse in health coverage. We knew his current employer was somewhat on the rocks, but the management made a big deal this week about how they got new investors who were going to keep the place running at least into January, with a good possibility things might stabilize in the Spring. I had done a bit of research on getting a marriage license and even asked our minister if she might be able to officiate a small ceremony, but all on the assumption that we had at least a month to prepare, if not 3-6 months.

​

That deal with the investors fell through in dramatic fashion this morning, so my fiancé's last day of work is tomorrow and his benefits end on 12/31. Theoretically we could get married as late as 12/29 and get him on my plan in time, but my department has an HR team of 2 who are notorious for slow processing times, so we'd rather not risk it. After having literally just emailed her on Wednesday that we were probably in the clear, we called the minister in a panic this afternoon, and she graciously agreed to help us make our pseudo-shotgun wedding special and meaningful despite the circumstances. This Thursday has a nice numerical date (12/21, I like the symmetry) and it's the Winter Solstice, which is both a spiritually meaningful day for us and means the sanctuary at Church will be decorated with pretty winter greenery. So, Thursday at 2pm it is!

​

A few family members are feeling some type of way about the whole situation, but we're trying to make the most of it and I'm excited to have UU play a bigger part in our wedding. We'll still be doing the "traditional" wedding as planned in November '24 to celebrate with all our loved ones, but we had already asked a close family member to officiate that ceremony before we even discovered UU, so I feel like now we get the best of both worlds. We are so grateful to have found both UU as a whole and our local congregation in particular at the perfect time, and I hope this will be the first of many milestones and celebrations we will share with our beloved community :)

​

Thanks so anyone who read this far, and to anyone who has suggestions or advice as we catapult into this new chapter!