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Weddings as a Community Building Activity

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As the world crumbles around us, it becomes clearer and clearer that we have to rebuild societies from the ground up. At the foundation of strong, lasting, and thriving societies are deep bonds of friendship, the kind that create spaces to discuss, lovingly yet frankly, what needs to be done to rebuild our society, one community at a time. This process of increasing the quality of our bonds of friendship is at the heart of community building.

If a marriage is the beginning of a family, and a family is the building block of society, then it is only logical that a wedding can and perhaps should contribute to the process of community building. It also makes sense to channel all the positive forces that surround a wedding into the very thing the marriage will contribute to: the community. Even at some of the worse weddings I have been to, there was always a sense of awe at the sight of the couple, of excitement when they would take their vows, of happiness while eating, talking and, most of the time, dancing together.

So the question is: what would a wedding that contributed to community building look like?

A big thank you to Borna and Kian for helping me clarify my thoughts on this topic!

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4 thoughts on “Weddings as a Community Building Activity

  1. Perhaps the bringing together of two families to organize and contribute in different ways to the plans of the wedding will bring unity and build bonds of friendship, which should be the foundation of the relationships between the families : love and friendship. So during the planning of the wedding, mutual respect, understanding and patience is important to create those bonds of friendship!

  2. I wish more people thought of weddings in this way. 🙂 Love it.

    I think it could look like *anything*. I think we make the mistake of thinking that only a very “simple” wedding can fulfill those requirements. Just like you said, the wedding can be great or terrible, but when everyone comes together to support and love the bride & groom as they start their life together, that is the part that makes it perfect!

    You know, this brings up another thought for me…how do we support couples as they get to know one another *before* marriage? There is so much talk about weddings, marriage, etc, but as a community, how do we encourage healthy dynamics as couples explore this process? Future blog post? 🙂

    1. Sholeh! This is a great question! How to support individuals before they get engaged! I do know that not meddling in the investigation process is a big deal. I also think that creating environments of acceptance is important – both accept that when someone is investigating, they are not going to have as much time for other things, and accept that their experience is unique, so if they ask you for advice, don’t box them as per your perspective. What do you think?

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