Votive Candles

Votive Candles

I need some pointers on catholic votive candles...?

I'm writing a short story in which one of the characters is catholic, and the electronic votive is a recurring image, but I don't want to mess it up. I have minimal experience with catholicism, so forgive me if these questions are stupid.

-When do you light a votive during a visit to your church?
-Do you need to ask permission to do it?
-When did electronic votive candles begin to show up in churches?
-Do you always need to pay money to do it?

I've been able to find pictures of the electronic ones as well as prayers that one might say while using it online, but these I haven't been able to find a good enough answer for, and they're kind of important.

The catholic church switched from wax to electric candles as to discourage priests from shoving them in certain body cavities by shocking the recipient. Anyways, to answer the questions-
No.
N/A
A few years ago.
N/A

Unity Candles - Coming Up With Interesting New Ideas

In case you are organizing a wedding and you have any intention of having a unity candle during the ceremony, try being creative and innovative about it.

According to tradition, there are three candles that constitute the unity candle. One for the bride, one for the groom, and their candles will then light the third one. This represents the union of two people in the evolution of one unit. Sometimes, family members and close relatives are involved in the lighting of the unity candle, mostly the moms of the groom and the bride, or any other closely knit members of family. Here, each family will light a candle, and they will light the third one together, symbolizing that the families are coming together.

There are a couple of twists you may add to this traditional and conventional practice of a wedding. Provide each wedding guest with a new unlit candle as they arrive. Once the couple lights the candle, the guests are asked to move forward (near the couple) and light the candles with the already lit unity candles. This may be a bit time consuming, and is more practical when the guest list is smaller. This is not just a good way to involve the guests in an activity, but it carefully symbolizes that family and friends of the couple are united at the wedding.

If your guest list is rather long, it would be quite a waste of time to conduct a candle lighting activity involving every person at the ceremony, and so the wedding couple makes the unity candle a part of their reception. Relight the candle and give each guest his own votive candle (a candle holder that is available at separate tables). As the wedding guests enter the reception area, they may light their votive and place it in their votive holder. This votive candle serves a double purpose of decorating or enhancing a plain candle holder in such a way that it coordinates with your wedding.

But of course, you could avoid the unity candle completely. Nowadays, most brides prefer to shorten the duration of the wedding and allot more time to plan the reception. It is certainly possible to do that, or else you could remove it from the wedding altogether, and make it a part of your reception.

You could adopt the votive candle idea that was suggested earlier, or just make the lighting of the unity candle one of the reception activities. For instance, you could select a quiet moment during the reception and conduct the unity candle lighting. It may be before the cake is cut, or during the prayer before the food is served. The unity candle can be used to decorate the cake table also. As the cake is cut and served to the guests, the candle will act as a reminder to the bonding between the newly wed couple, and also their bond with family and friends.

Though the unity candle lighting is not a mandatory part of the wedding, most brides and grooms choose to have it at their wedding. But it is vital and important that with so much of wedding plans around, there will always be interesting and creative ways to make the ceremony special to the wedding couple.

About the Author

Abhishek is a Wedding Planning expert and he has got some great Wedding Etiquette Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 93 Pages Ebook, "Wedding Etiquette Made Easy!" from his website http://www.Wedding-Stars.com/144/index.htm . Only limited Free Copies available.

Votive Candles

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