The Wedding Diary: Orders of Service

Writing your Order of Service can be a pretty daunting task.

If you’re having a religious wedding service then it can be a little easier with guidance from the person conducting the service but it can still take a lot of drafting & re-writing!

We married at a local church which was special to my family. The Reverend talked through which service we would be using & suggested some bible readings we might like to use. This gave us the basis of our Order of Service which was really useful, from there though we added to it & made it our own.

Here’s a few tips which might make things easier if you’re in the process of  writing your Order of Service:

– Don’t be afraid to be a little different with your readings! Although 1 Corinthians 13 is a beautiful bible reading it is often used! We chose a passage from Song of Soloman instead & it was lovely that people didn’t necessarily know it too well beforehand.

– Why not put in a quote or passage at the beginning or the end? We had a quote from John Lennon that is special to both of us.

– Generally, secular wedding services are shorter than religious ones & there is much less that needs to go in to your Order of Service. With non religious weddings we often get people choosing to have an Order of the Day instead. This allows you to put in lots more information – the running order of the day, which rooms are being used etc.

– A really lovely touch is to put a place for ‘thank yous’ in your Order of Service. You could thank everyone for joining you on your special day & take the time to list the members of your wedding party. It’s also nice to do this so people can see who everybody is.

– Don’t try to put too much in your Order of Service. You don’t need the words of the marriage service or all the wording that the person conducting the service will use. It’s nice to keep some things as a surprise for your guests!

Hope this helps a little! We can guide you through the process of creating your Order of Service here at Hummingbird & we’re always happy to provide your with samples to give you a little inspiration.

All of the photographs in this post were taken by the very talented Gill Taylor. You can contact her via her website.