our sand ceremony

Sand ceremonies are not widely included in weddings, but we're excited about having one on April 4. Since they're not terribly popular, we've found ourselves describing them a lot. I'll get to the explanation in a minute, but I want to say first that Mike Blackwell is my hero when it comes to our sand ceremony! We asked Mike to build our container, and he's working hard on it. He also is thinking a lot about the symbols of the ceremony and how it might flow best during our wedding. Mike gets it! In the midst of a wedding with lots of details that people think we're crazy for taking on, this is one detail that someone actually understands and appreciates. I am thrilled!

For those who don't know yet, a sand ceremony serves a lot of the same purposes as a unity candle. We're not doing a unity candle for lots of reasons, some practical and some philosophical, but we want a symbol for the merging of two lives into one story.

So, think of an ant farm. You know, a thin rectangular shape that has glass on the front and back. Keith holds one color of sand, and I'll hold the other. Many of you won't be surprised to learn that we're using blue and white sand. We pour the sand from separate containers into the top of the container. For a long time, the colors never touch. When they do touch, though, they are no longer separable. What you see through the glass is two different colors meeting somewhere in the middle. The line between the colors might even blur as the sands mix a little bit. When we pour the sand, the colors will be more separate, but we'll keep our container through the years and watch as the sands mix and settle just as our lives will mix and settle. On our wedding day, we are making a piece of art that will hang in our home and be a reminder to us of the lives we lived separately and now choose to live together. It will also remind us of the life and story we are creating together because we'll never be able to go back to a day when the colors of our sand are completely separate. Over the years, our container will tip over and mix the sands a little more just like our life together will take spills every now and then. For a long, long time, there will be parts of the container that hold only white sand or only blue sand, and it will remind us that we have not lost our individual identity even as our lives have merged.

Our sand container will be a story for us and for you, and it will begin at our wedding.