god or no god in wedding ceremony?

Question

My boyfriend & i have began to plan our wedding. We have a serious problem concerning the ceremony. I'm atheist, he was raised Christian but is seriously beginning to doubt the existance of god (we met in an atheist chat room). The problem is that i want no mention of god, no prayer, no religious undertones etc in the ceremony. He became very upset, his family are strong Christians & he felt that it would be a huge insult to them & disrespectful. He suggested that we comprimise. How the heck do you comprimise in this situation? Mention god and say a prayer in one half of the ceremony, and not in the other, that makes absolutely no sense. My beliefs would still be disregarded. I care deeply about his family, but this is OUR wedding. I'm not willing to cheat myself to please his family. If it was actually HIM that honesly wanted the prayer and mention of God, i'd be ok with that. But he flat out said, "I just don't want to catch grief from my family". What do i do?

we considered having the friend who is marrying us do a "the groom has requested a prayer" then something short and sweet. hopefully this will be enough to keep waters calm

i'm not disregarding his beliefs, they are mostly the same as mine. as i said we met in an atheist chat room. if he was a firm believer i would accept that and there would be prayer and readings but this is not the case, this disagreement has occurred only b/c he wants to make his parents happy, but what about my parents, they are agnostic? what to do, what to do

ok, for the people that are saying that i'm being arrogant. I'm not, i believe there is no god just as strongly as his family believies that there is a god. i stand firm in my beliefs, just as they do. if my question was read carefully, it's obvious that i am willing to compromise to make them happy, but not to a great extent

Answer 1

I respect you for being firm in your beliefs (or non-beliefs). I too am an atheist and I feel the same way you do. My husband (who does believe in god) and I luckily did not have this problem. (His family lives out of state and we eloped and had a nice private wedding in a park by a retired judge with just our two witnesses present.) Your husband-to-be should be supporting you more and not caving in to his family. If he can't stand the heat now, before you're even married, how is he going to stand up on your behalf after you are married? A husband and wife are a team and should support each other. Considering that he is leaning more towards atheism than christianity, I definitely do understand why you are upset. It's too bad that so many of the others that have answered don't get it. Anyway, I don't think you should have to compromise your beliefs for theirs, it is yours and his wedding after all, not theirs!

Answer 2

We had a humanist ceremony and out of respect for the many faiths gathered we did have a prayer to god of all people. Having a good and experienced humanist celebrant on board can help you guys strike the right note.

I think I have a compromise:

The celebrant can say, "X and X love Y and Y (X being your names, Y being his parents names) and they bring with them a rich christian heritage. X and X have asked them to read the following christian passage about love:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth


It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.

Love never falls in ruins;
but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or
knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.

But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.

When I was an infant,
I spoke as an infant,
I reckoned as an infant;

when I became [an adult],
I abolished the things of the infant.

For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.

But now remains
faith, hope, love,

these three;

but the greatest of these is love.

This way you pay homage to his parents belief system without having to profess the the belief yourselves or have to have religious ceremony.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

the bottom line is it is your DAY. you would possibly want to do although you pick. even if that is likewise his day too, and also you've were given to make effective he's tender with it. I comprehend the position he's coming from...pissing off the in-guidelines would no longer be how you could commence off a wedding ceremony. My advice is to have a outstanding non-classic wedding ceremony. Make up something you pick! Get married with a fashion available subject matter (area weddings are tremendous too). save the ceremony area short, sweet, and easy yet have a tremendous reception. through the time the in-guidelines leave they could have had this variety of staggering time on the reception they could have forgotten the 20 minutes worth of ceremony. one thanks to gentle issues over is to enable them say a blessing or something when you've walked lower go into reverse the aisle (in case you pick to have an aisle) or have an total speech or song on the reception dedicated on your mum and dad & in-guidelines to really convey your gratitude for respecting your individuality and being so knowledge about your vast day. with somewhat of luck they are going to be so touched they are going to drop the guilt holiday. purely be real to your self (and be open minded-no longer unavoidably about god yet about traditions in his family contributors that per chance you could include into it w/out the god area). save your guy in concepts as you intend and sturdy luck!

Answer 4

We had exactly the same issue in our wedding, so I will tell you how I broached it. I am a holiday-Christian (Christmas and Easter), my husband has zero religious tolerance, and his parents are devout...

1) We did not get married in a church, we got married at the reception site.
2) We got married by a Justice of the Peace, not a minister
3) The JP wore black ceremonial robes (not religious...but gives the impression of religion without stating anything...kept the parents VERY happy, I'll tell you)
4) No prayers or hymns. We included two reading about SPIRITUALITY (not religion...very different) and love
5) No blessing. The JP asked everyone to take a minute of silence to confer upon us a wish, blessing, or prayer, whatever way they wish to celebrate our marriage and wish us well.

This worked for us very nicely...it got me through my beliefs or lack thereof, helped my hubbie by not being in any way "GO GOD!" and helped the in-laws who thought (at first) that we were going to have a heathen wedding!

Hope it works out for you both!

Answer 5

It's really a complicated situation. YOU ARE RIGHT AND HIS PARENTS ARE RIGHT FROM THEIR OWN SIDE! That's why it's difficult! If I were you, I would make 2 CEREMONIES! What I mean by that? YOU CAN GET MARRIED WITHOUT ANY OTHER RELATIVES AND THEN YOU CAN HAVE A MARRIAGE AS HIS PARENTS WANT. It's really difficult for his parents to accept the whole situation because they surely waited until now to see their son getting married in a church and they can't imagine something else.
By having a caremony that you will BE ONLY YOU 2, you will undoubtably make you happy and it's unxpensive. Then you can do a ceremony to please all the others. SO, NOBODY WILL COMPLAIN!!!

Answer 6

I heard of one wedding where they had an atheist ceremony from the officiant and songs etc, but had a period in which friends and family could stand up and offer readings of their choosing - so if his parents wanted to offer a prayer, it would fulfill their need and your fiance's need without your endorsement. If you did this you could also make sure that there were one or two god-free readings (poetry etc) so it didn't become just about his family.

Answer 7

Just curious, how do you know there is no god? I can tell you how I know there is. Why are you getting married? Because its the thing to do, everyones doing it? So you know, God instilled marriage. Since you are an antheist you have no reason to marry since it was God's idea to begin with. So I think that solves the problem. Of course living together before marriage is wrong in God's eye too. But again that doesn't matter because you BELIEVE there is no God. Just really look around and think about it. I'm not trying to offend you, just telling you the truth. So if this does offend, just remind yourself that its not true. God Bless.

Answer 8

Marry by the Justice of the peace. Compromise for the sake of your fiance and his family. It's only half an hour that you have to put up with it.... and not worth starting a family feud over it. Marriage is about sacifice and sometimes, compromise, if you are too arrogant to give up a little to make your future-in-laws then you will give a very bad impression to start with.
Be tolerant and generous...after al, it's their son's wedding too

Congrats and good luck

Answer 9

Have a simple outdoor ceremony, or go to a Justice of the Peace. This marriage, and the wedding, is about you and your boyfriend/fiance. You have the say in this - not the parents. They may be hurt that their fantasies of your ideal wedding do not meet their expectations, but you have to stand firm in YOUR beliefs. If you cave into their demands now, they'll have more power to control your decisions in the future.

Answer 10

Treat God as you would another of your boyfriend's family/ friends, Smile, Invite God to come in , and accept His good wishes;). A little Prayer wouldn't hurt you. Think on this, too, if you have children, religion will become an Issue...are you sure he's the man for you?