Lila Sophia Tresemer - The Conscious Wedding Handbook: How to Create Authentic Ceremonies That Express Your Love

This book is dedicated to all who are willing to cross the threshold into a conscious partnership, and to realize the potential to cocreate your relationship as a spiritual path.

Contents

Preface

We have imagined a sixty-second television ad for weddings that would go something like this:

Voice of a wise elder: Youre planning a wedding. How is it going? Brides voice: Oh, weve been so busy. Weve got the dress...

Images show quick scenes of trying on dresses, with mother and friends looking on, finding the right one, everyone nodding approval, smiling, squealing, a significant look from the mother. An empty box appears:

The Dress

Then is checked:

The Dress

Brides voice: And the place weve got a great place...
Images of the many choices of venue, then:

The Venue

Brides voice: And the flowers...
Images of the many choices of flowers, then:

The Flowers

Brides voice: And weve found a good wine selection.
Images of tasting wines, choosing the right ones:

The Wine

Brides voice: Weve chosen the invitations on a beautiful paper...
Image of sitting with the designer of invitations, with many choices on the table, then:

The Invitations

Brides voice: And were finally finished with the list of whos invited!
Image of list with some names underlined, and some names crossed out:

Whos Invited

Brides voice: And we have some really cool things too!
Images of limousine, boutonnieres, bungee jumping:

Cool Things to Do

Voice of wise elder: Good work. Is there anything missing?
Bride (thinking about it): No, I dont think so...
Image of the list, as shes pondering all that shes accomplished:

The Dress

The Venue

The Flowers

The Wine

The Invitations

Whos Invited

Cool Things to Do

Voice of wise elder: Perhaps youve forgotten something???
A new item arises at the bottom, box unchecked:

Meaning

Brides voice, confused, vulnerable: I thought meaning would take care of itself?

We have imagined doing this as a commercial, but there is no way we could pay for such an ad. For all the other items on the list, money exchanges hands; you hire people to make them happen. Not so with meaning! Youve got to figure that one out for yourself.

A Conscious Wedding: Gateway to a Conscious Marriage

introduction

E very year, over two million couples get married in the United States alone. Statistics on 182 countries compiled by the United Nations (Fertility and Family Planning Section) show that, from Albania to Zimbabwe, in wealthy countries and in poor, in times of conflict and times of peace, many millions of people marry!

How many realize the fullness of this opportunity? Weddings often turn into a flurry of activities and to-do lists, while the potential to cocreate a ceremony that could be magical and foundational to the rest of the couples lives is overlooked. Its as though the Beloved sits in the middle of the living room, neglected and ignored, because the energy is going toward dresses, food, and wine. Instead of focusing on building the core connection with the Beloved, the wedding industry has hijacked many of the resources and much of the attention involved in creating a deep and meaningful wedding ceremony.

Statistics from 2013 reveal that the costs of weddings have escalated since the financial crisis of 2008, with the average wedding in the U.S. costing $29,858. The dress itself averaged $1,281. Averages can be deceiving, and we know weddings can range between hundreds of thousands of dollars to near zero (a pot-luck wedding we attended, where friends brought food and music, the couple wore recycled clothing, and the celebrant was an old friend). That the wedding industry drives many of the choices is obvious. Explore any wedding magazine to see what is promoted as absolutely necessary to fulfill the dream you have for your special day. Then calculate the costs involved! With these prompts, a bride is far more likely to stress over her wedding gown than to give deep consideration to the vows she is making to her partner, which are intended to form the foundation of their life together.

Accurate wedding and divorce statistics are challenging to pin down. Divorce rates are high; the threat to long-term, sacred, and fulfilling relationships is real. However, there is a way to build a firm foundation for personal growth, deep soulful support, and true delight in partnership. All of that can be woven symbolically into the vision of the ceremony. Your wedding can be one of the most significant and meaningful celebrations on which you will possibly ever collaborate!

When recognized as such, a marriage and a deeply committed relationship provide an astonishing opportunity for growth. They open a portal toward understanding Love how to create Love and how to receive Love. We capitalize Love (and Beloved) in this book because we recognize the astonishing power of this wonder, this cohesive and cocreative energy of the universe itself. The vision of the relationship you choose to craft can be enhanced by the highly valuable project of cocreating a wedding. It is an opportunity, a mythic one, to build a ceremony that captures the depth, the magic, and the passion of your Love. And, it doesnt need to cost a fortune! When the soul is present in the ceremony, the cost of creating the look in the staging of the ceremony becomes secondary not unimportant, simply secondary.

The portal to a conscious marriage is a conscious wedding. Both require a conscious relationship, which in turn requires skills. These skills need to precede the design of a ceremony. In this book we will focus in . Our research and counseling with couples has indicated that the wedding provides an opportunity to script whats most important to the couple. In your life there are mythic moments, which we might call rites of passage, threshold crossings, or points of initiation: meeting the challenges of puberty safely and wisely, the first time you make love, the death of someone close to you, marriages, divorces... All are meaningful transition times in life. Our culture has lost many of the rituals for marking threshold crossings. A wedding is one of the few remaining rites. We can use that opportunity to create a ceremony with meaning.