You're getting married.
You have invited amazing people to your wedding and they arrived from all over the world.
You've brought together the most important people from your two lives to witness your wedding vows and celebrate your movement into marriage.
This is the place where you mingle your pasts and invite this newly gathered community to become your future community.
When you're creating your wedding ceremony you want to spend time explaining to your community not only how grateful you are for the presence here, and in your life leading up to this ceremony, but also what your expectations are of them as your community at the wedding reception and in the years ahead:

• Who are they? Talk about your guests and the parts of your lives they have come from.
  
• What do they mean to you? How have they helped you grow into the people you are today? Who has inspired you to love as you love your beloved?
• What do you want them to do today? You not only want them to witness your wedding vows, you also want them to get to know and enjoy one another.
  You want them to look forward to future occasions where they will meet and mingle.
  
• What are your hopes from them as you move forward into marriage? You want their gathered support and enjoyment throughout your life together.
  You want them to remind you how important and real your love and marriage are because they were here when you celebrated that love.
  

One of the most wonderful things that happens at a wedding is that somebody's Aunt Jane gets to meet your best friend's wife because they have so much in common.
Making space for that bonding to happen is building bridges for your marriage.
Those bridges will serve you throughout your marriage.
You want your community to mingle.
You want them to remember the important ways in which love has changed their lives.
You want them to know how important they all are to you.
Tip: Take the time to tell your community why they're important to you.
And then tell them what you're offering them at your wedding ceremony and reception: a chance for the most important people in both your lives to meet, greet and get acquainted - all while having a great time! Then invite them to witness your wedding vows and the rest of your happily and healthily ever after marriage.