Alternatives to sand ceremony or candle lighting

Glass pouring, then a glass blowing on your anniversary

chocolate sharings

tequila sharings

sushi sharings

Some of what you do should relate to your specific story....

We are doing an Oathing Stone

Our officiant had a number of suggestions including a knot tying ceremony (we didn't do this) and wine sharing (we didn't mix wines). We also did a wine box ceremony. We got a wine box, put letters we wrote in it with a bottle of wine. On our anniversary (next week) we will open the letters, drink the wine, and put new letters and wine in it.

The sand ceremony and candle lighting aren't "traditional," in the sense of going back for 100s of years (or even one generation!). You can skip them entirely.

We are doing a unity glass ceremony. We choose or colors, and it is used in the ceremony very much like the sand, but then it is shipped off to make a unique glass sculpture. Is a bit pricy, but we are so excited about it! www.unityinglass.com

I think we are going to do a "unity tree." We will take a potted tree, and fill the pot with dirt from our childhood homes. Really though the pot will be basically full of soil and we're just adding to the top. We then plan on planting the tree in our yard.

My best friend and her husband bought Bibles with their names engraved on the front and had their mothers go through and highlight verses before the wedding. At the wedding they placed them on top of eachother and then invited their MOH and best man to sign the marriage license on top of the bibles with them and their parents to come up and each of the Fathers prayed. It was in front of everyone, but it was still very personal and had a lot of meaning for them.

We are doing a beer sharing. Craft beer is huge in our house and what most of our vacations center around. People at the wedding will know it makes sense for us. We still need to craft up how to work it into the ceremony and what will be said

We are doing a hand fasting ceremony

We are doing a padlock ceremony. This is to include FH's children. If not for them, I wouldn't do anything.

We didn't do any sort of unity ceremony. We didn't feel it was right for us. The ceremony was still beautiful.

We are doing a "sand ceremony" but no sand....it will be small glass beads (in our colors) that we will have blown into a statue

This is what I really wanted to do (Unity in Glass), but we decided it was too expensive. Now, nearly 6 mo after the wedding, I still kinda wish we had spent the money to do it.

http://www.unityinglass.com/

Not doing a 'unity' ceremony is also an option. Getting married in and of itself by definition IS a unity ceremony.

@Julie thats what we are doing. We love that idea and found it before we even picked a date and started saving right away! It really is different

Ak and Julie, the Unity in Glass thing can be recreated for much less. If you go to Bullseye glass online, you can buy the colors for around 10 bucks each. Then, you find a glass blowing or glass fusing studio in your area and make a date to do it yourself on or around your anniversary. A one session class should cost less than 65.00

If you're in NJ, I can recommend at least six studios in our area.

In essence, your whole wedding is a unity ceremony, so there isn't really any need to add one, but I do like the visuals.

And no, there is nothing traditional about either sand or candle ceremonies.

Thank you for all the ideas! The candle and sand ceremony's are traditional for my family and that is why I said traditional

We're doing a tree planting of sorts. I'm having soil brought from all of the places we each have lived & then we'll pour the soil into the pot with the small tree and pack it down. Both of our moms are very into gardening, a trait we've both inherited, so it makes sense for us. We've also both lived in several places, so I think the soil could look really cool in layers to show our journeys through life.

My DH likes to keep mementos from our dates together (movie tickets, cards, etc.). We got a keepsake box and created an "anniversary time capsule." We added all of our mementos to it with the promising of looking at the old and adding new things each year.