Our Sand Unity Jar, Symbolizing the Joining of Both of Our Families
The lighting of a unity candle in a wedding is a symbolic action. A visual example of two single lives joining together to produce one flame and one future for the couple. The unity candle has been a part of traditional American weddings for the better part of this century, however it was not really an option for our wedding.
The reason that it was not an option for us in an outdoor wedding was any small summer breeze would make keeping the wicks lit a real chore. So as an alternative to the unity candle we decided that we were going to use a sand unity jar, an idea that has been popular at outdoor and destination weddings for awhile and is now being seen in more traditional ceremonies.
The sand jar is based upon the same idea of the unity candle, it also is a visual symbol of the wedding and the new life that is being started. You traditionally use two colors of sand, one for the bride and one for the groom and then during the ceremony the couple takes turns layering their sand in a decorative jar or vase. Once the sand is layered, it can never be separated again, just like the couple exchanging vows.
For our specific sand jar we added a color and used three colors. We used one color to represent Bob and his daughter, another color to represent myself and my kids, and then a third color to represent God and our faith.
There were several different combinations of colors that we considered… the first was our wedding colors, the second was our favorite colors, and the third was to use colors that matched the decor of our house. In the end we selected the third option because I knew that I wanted to display our sand jar in our home as a visual reminder of the commitment that we had made to one another.
During our wedding service we had the children come up and help us pour the sand, Bob and his daughter did their color of tan, the kids and I did our color of red, and we all did the white sand together to represent our faith. We first did a layer of white sand because we believe that our marriage is built on the foundation of our faith, then we each layered our colors, and we finished the jar off with another layer of white sand. It was a very special way to involve the kids in our ceremony and was a great way to symbolize the joining of both of our families.
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