Photos by Kelly Benvenuto and Rachel Petri
The ring warming ceremony is a powerful and flexible wedding ritual that you can incorporate for a personal, meaningful touch to your ceremony. Watch this video, read the transcript below, and feel free to make use of the ring warming ceremony script excerpt!
Below you’ll find:
• The transcript of the ring warming ceremony explanation video
• A ring warming ceremony script for when you want to include every single guest in the ritual.
• A video of a ring warming ceremony done with just the wedding party and immediate families.
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TRANSCRIPT
0:00 Intro: Hey I am Reverend Maureen Cotton from The Soulful wedding. I’m a minister for the spiritual but not religious and today I want to talk to you about the ring warming as a way to help your wedding ceremony be meaningful and authentic to you. The ring warming ceremony is a really beautiful ritual that is especially beautiful for the simplicity and strength of symbolism and its flexibility. I really truly believe any couple who is exchanging wedding rings could find beauty and meaning in the ring warming ceremony.
0:30 Basically: what is it a ring warming? It is an opportunity for other people to put a prayer, a blessing, or simply a good wish, a happy thought into your wedding rings before you exchange them. It’s a really beautiful way to make people feel included.
0:50 Who can be included? It could be just your immediate families it could be your families and your wedding party. It could be your entire gathered community I have done this ritual with as many as 200 people participating.
1:05 What is so beautiful about this ritual is that when you ask people to participate in this way everybody can really do it in their own way some people will be really prayerful, some people will just think a happy thought and pass it on but everyone is going to get that little bit of connection. When they see you in the future you’re going to find—I hear this from my couples—they are interested to see the ring they remember their moment with it it really makes them feel a part of the day.
1:34 There’s two major ways that I think of how to do the logistics. One is if you’re going to involve everybody who is there if you have a wedding gathering that is—I don’t know maybe thirty people or more—my suggestion is to introduce the ring warming toward the beginning of the ceremony let people know what the idea is give them specific instructions for how to put their happy thought into the ring and then have the rings be passed around as the ceremony is going on.
2:09 On on average the ceremonies that I perform are around 30 minutes and that is typically plenty of time for the rings to go around to the whole community. Only once did I ever call for the rings towards the end of the ceremony and they weren’t ready quite yet and that was in Texas. In an area that thinking is pretty religious it was a pretty prayerful community and when that happened the rings were almost there, almost done so I turned to the musicians I asked them if they could make music for a few more minutes so that the bridesmaids could have their opportunity to put the to give their blessing.
2:51 If you have a really large community and you’re worried that the rings might not get back in time you can have that backup plan that music could play. But I have done this ceremony many many many times and it only happened that one time so I would generally say not to worry about it but that is how would invite your whole community to do it.
3:10 If you’re having a really small wedding maybe a dozen maybe 20 or so people maybe up to 30 you could have the ring warming really be more of its own moment. Where instead of it going on in the background of the ceremony it is the main event. You definitely want to have music happening to help it be a more contemplative moment. The rings can kind of just get passed around and people are in the moment.
3:37 Another option that you can do whatever the size of your wedding—like let’s say you have 200 people—you’re too nervous to send the rings around to everyone you’re too nervous they wont come back in time and that makes you feel anxious what you can do is just have your wedding party and your immediate family participate.
3:58 So logistically that here’s what this looks like often the wedding party is already standing on either side of you so your fishing could stay I now invite the siblings and the parents to come up and join us up here maybe your siblings are already in the wedding party maybe you don’t have a wedding party now everybody comes up but in whatever exact way happens your fishing invites you the whoever you want to participate to come up. They kind of form a line on each side the rings start on one side and then they go down to the other side. Again have music and then have that last person know they need to bring the rings to you.
4:34 No matter how you do it the idea is all the same you’re really inviting your community to be part of this moment with you to share in your happiness it’s a beautiful ritual. Lots of luck and then just remember you want to think about if you want a dish or a box for the rings if you want to tie them together in a little bag or just with a tie I even had one couple do it totally bare however you like.
RING WARMING CEREMONY SCRIPT & TIPS
This script is from a ceremony in which all 120 guests participated in the ring warming ceremony.
“It’s time to introduce the ring warming. A ring warming is an opportunity for you to imbue your own blessing, prayer, or good wish into Jill and Jack’s rings. In a moment the rings will be passed around to each of you.
Now there are about 120 people here. But don’t worry, I’ve got a bit of a story to tell you about these two love birds before we get to the ring exchange. So please, don’t rush, take your moment to offer your wish or blessing.
If you find yourself uncertain what to do, I suggest just holding them, closing your eyes. If you are a visual person, then envision Jill and Jack living in happiness. If words come naturally then speak a wish, silently in your heart. Then pass them along to the next person.
They can head down the rows, weaving back and forth, at some point jumping the aisle until they get to the first row here.”
• The ritual is introduced at the beginning (in my ceremonies it’s between the welcome or remembrance and the Love Story) then the rings are passed around as the ceremony continues.
• Before the ceremony, I always check in with the first and last people who will get the rings—often a Best Man and Maid of Honor—to explain what will happen so they can assist in getting things moving.
• You’ll want to decide how the rings will be contained: a cute box, dish, bag, ribbons, etc. A search on Etsy will reveal many options!
• Feel free to “steal” or adapt this ring warming ceremony script!
RING WARMING VIDEO
In this ceremony with 175 guests, just the wedding party and immediate families participated in the ring warming ceremony.