The country wedding: From making your own candles to a symbolic bridge crossing

by Barb Adams

From the many country weddings I’ve either been involved with directly or have reported on for magazines and book chapters, here are reflections and descriptions of three that especially touched me. Perhaps you'll adapt one or more to embellish your countryside ceremony as well.

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1. Making candles for the ceremony or for wedding favors as a pre-wedding activty for the wedding party. I wouldn’t have known this could be so affecting until I saw it in various forms. In one case, the wedding party was working together in a big country kitchen pouring warm wax into cleaned seashells to craft candles for the after-wedding dinner. The candles being made were rustic and natural, perfect for the country wedding.

Maybe that’s why both guys and gals were enjoying themselves, a true friendship between male and female which reflected the best-friend foundation of the couple getting married. There wasn’t the sense of tension I got when observing another pre-wedding preparation when pink ribbons were being attached to artificial perfumey pink manufactured candles with reluctant guys trying to appear engaged in the group activity. Even the girls and women felt a little tense, and the gal in charge somewhat treating them as though they were marginally useful clueless cogs. (Both genders can too easily micro manage and project that feeling onto the other in mainstream society. It seems we just resist it more when women do it to men.) ______________________________________________________________________

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In general, candles are made to burn either free-standing or as “container” candles, meaning hot wax is poured into decorative containers that hold the candle as it burns. In the case of the latter, I’ve seen country weddings adorned with various charming container candles including small jam jars, seashell or fresh water clam shells -- great for the sea or riverside country wedding but sometimes hard to get fresh water shells large enough. Saltwater clam shells are a little larger, but both would do best with a longer burning wax such as beeswax or soy.

I’ve seen mismatched tea cups collected from second-hand stores, other mismatched small containers in the wedding colors -- for example, little dishes, cups, cream pitchers, etc. as long as they were green or blue or whatever the major color of the country wedding was.
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Candle Making 4 You Tells how to make all the different types of candles including tealight, beeswax, hurricane shell, rolled, layered, container, molded pillar, aromatherapy, votive, massage and spa candles. Country weddings often call for natural and eco-friendly materials, and this covers natural waxes including soy and beeswax. Plus, it shows how to scent with real essential oils vs. artificial frangrances, which can be tricky but well worth it especially if the country wedding is indoors. Certain essential oils are known to induce feelings of peace, calm and joy. (Artificial scenting instructions are included here also, though.)

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Garden centers sell ladybugs for release in spring. There are mail order services for them, also. And as far as white doves, actual mourning doves are quite vulnerable for release at weddings away from their home site. So dove release farms usually raise stronger white homing pigeons. Also very beautiful and related to the dove, they have a legendary powerful instinct to find their way back home within a certain radius of their farm. Search online for white dove release services to see if there’s one in your area.

3. Crossing a bridge: Real or symbolic. Country outdoor wedding locations may include an actual bridge as part of the procession aisle. It may be a decorative foot bridge over a small stony creek, an old rustic log bridge over a stream or pond, or even a country road temporarily closed down for the ceremony with a bridge that crosses a river.

Crossing a bridge is not only a charming addition to a country wedding, it symbolizes the choice of a new beginning -- going from one way of being to another. But if your country wedding location has no bridge, I’ve seen symbolic ones created very easily and effectively. The most rustic was simply two six-foot long cedar logs laid side-by-side along the bridal pathway about five feet apart. The bride and groom walked between them as a symbolic bridge. The “bridge” was decorated with potted flowers on the outside edge of each log. At the beginning of the bridge, both the bride and groom came towards it from separate smaller winding paths which symbolized their previous life experiences. They met at the beginning, crossed it together, then continued down the outdoor flower-strewn wider aisle together towards the outdoor altar.

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