Quaker wedding
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Quaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends.
[edit] Quaker wedding process
As soon as Friends began to grow in the early 1650s, the question of how to conduct the wedding became prominent. Such practices as using priests of the established church, posting banns, even registering the marriage with the state, could hardly be used. Sometime after Parliament legalized civil marriages in 1653, George Fox issued an epistle or advisory letter to his followers instructing them to examine prospective spouses as to their intentions to marry and to determine that there were no familial or other obstacles. After the local meeting had approved the couple's intention, an announcement would be made and posted in the market on market day as to the wedding. Only then could a wedding occur. Outsiders sometimes slandered the couple as living in adultery, but Fox married Margaret Fell using a modification of this procedure in 1669. Two years later, when he was in Barbados, he sent out another epistle in which he assigned women's meetings the initial responsibility of passing on a couple's desire to be wed, something that became quite controversial among those who did not want to see women's roles expanded.
Today when a couple decides to get married they declare their intentions to marry to the meeting (either in writing or in person). The meeting then appoints a clearness committee to talk with the couple and make sure that they have properly prepared themselves for marriage. If the committee is clear that this couple is ready, they recommend that the monthly meeting should take this wedding “under their care” and appoint a committee of overseers to make sure the couple makes all the needed arrangements for the wedding ceremony (these duties vary but may include helping schedule the date, premarital counseling, getting a certificate drawn up, making sure the couple knows how to acquire and file any legal documents required by the government). Many unprogrammed meetings are willing to perform same-sex marriages.
[edit] The ceremony
A traditional wedding ceremony in a Friends meeting is similar to any other Meeting for Worship, and therefore often very different from the experience expected by non-Friends. The attendees gather for silent worship, often with the couple sitting in front of the meeting (this depends on the layout of that particular meeting house).
Out of the silence the couple will exchange what the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting describes as "promises" [1] with each other; since traditionally Friends have no clergy, there is no one person to “marry” them. Instead they declare themselves married before God and those gathered.
They then sign the wedding certificate which, for the purposes of the meeting, means they are now married. All those present are invited to share messages with the gathered meeting as they feel led (as in any other Meeting for Worship, see main article on the Society of Friends). At the close of worship all of those present at the meeting are asked to sign the wedding certificate as witnesses that the wedding took place and acknowledging their presence at the service. Often these certificates are hung prominently in the homes of the couple throughout their married lives as a reminder of the vows they took, and the people they shared that moment of their lives with.
