Rituals
Unity candle ceremony: the words, the setup, and the three minutes it takes
A unity candle has each partner take a light from their own family’s candle and touch both flames to one center candle together, and it adds about three minutes to a wedding ceremony. It sits after the vows and rings, and it is the one ritual that fails outright outdoors in any wind.
Two taper candles, one pillar candle, and two family candles already burning at the front. Each partner lights their taper from their own family’s flame, they touch both tapers to the pillar at the same time, and one light comes from two.
It is the most familiar unity rite in American weddings and the most weather-dependent thing on the list. Everything below assumes indoors; the outdoor version has its own paragraph, and it is short, because the honest advice outdoors is to choose a different ritual.
Also called: unity candle ceremony · candle lighting ceremony · 3 minutes on the run-sheet
What happens, and who does it
The two family candles are lit — usually by the mothers or by whoever is standing in that role — and the pillar and both tapers are set out unlit. Wicks are trimmed and both tapers have been lit once already, because a brand-new wick does not catch on the first touch.
Introduces the rite to the guests and names what the two burning candles are for.
Step to the table, each takes the taper on their own side and lights it from their own family’s candle.
Touch both tapers to the center candle at the same time, and hold them there — a pillar wick takes longer to catch than anyone expects.
Speaks over the lighting and closes when the center flame is steady, not before.
Set the tapers back in their holders and turn to face the room.
What has to be on the table
The words
Written here, for this page, and free to use or change. Nothing below is presented as traditional wording — where this rite has liturgy of its own, that liturgy belongs to the tradition and to whoever leads it, and printing an approximation of it would be worse than printing nothing. The lines in italic are stage directions and are never read aloud.
Warm
A room with some noise in it. Written to be spoken while the tapers are travelling, because the walk is longer than it looks.
[ To the guests. The two family candles are already burning. If one is not, relight it without narrating it. ]
There are two candles already burning up here, and they were lit for the two families [PARTNER A] and [PARTNER B] came out of. Two households. Two sets of habits about how a kitchen is run and how an argument is had. Both of them a good deal older than this relationship, and both of them still going.
[ Nod them to the table. Each takes the taper on their own side. Give them the walk — do not talk over it. ]
[PARTNER A], [PARTNER B] — take a light from your family.
[ They touch both tapers to the center candle together and hold them there. Speak over it. Do not stop until the center flame is standing on its own. ]
And now together. Neither of those flames goes out to make this one. That is the whole point of it, and it is worth saying out loud: nobody here is being asked to give up where they came from in order to build something with somebody else.
[ They set the tapers back — still lit — and turn to face the room. Wait for them to turn before the next line. ]
One light, out of two. It will be burning for the rest of the afternoon, and every one of us can see it from where we are sitting.
Solemn
A church or a quiet room. The pauses carry it; there is very little to say.
[ To the guests. Let the two lit candles be looked at for a moment first. ]
Two candles are burning here, lit for the families [PARTNER A] and [PARTNER B] were raised in.
[ They step to the table and take the taper on their own side. ]
[PARTNER A], [PARTNER B] — take a light from your family, and bring it here.
[ Both tapers to the center wick at once. Hold the silence until the flame is steady. ]
Together, please. Neither flame is spent in the lighting of the third. Nothing has been given up here. Something has been added.
[ Tapers back in their holders, still lit. They turn to face the room. ]
One light, drawn from two, and it will burn for the rest of this ceremony.
Where it sits in the ceremony
After the vows and the rings, before the pronouncement. The rite reads as the consequence of the promises rather than as a preamble to them, and it gives the couple something to do with the minute in which the room has just heard them promise something.
Three minutes, most of it movement: the walk to the table, the wicks catching, the walk back. The lighting itself is about forty seconds when the wicks have been primed and considerably longer when they have not.
The whole running order, with every element timed, is on the order of a wedding ceremony — the 3 minutes here go on top of whichever shape the ceremony is built on.
Variations
Some couples extinguish their own tapers once the center candle is lit, for the older reading of the rite — two lives becoming one. Most now leave them burning, for the reading in both scripts above: nothing is given up. Either is correct, and the only wrong version is the one where nobody decided beforehand and the couple hesitate over the table.
A child gets their own taper and lights it from the center candle after the couple, rather than into it — the light comes to them from the new household. A young child needs a hand on the taper and an adult standing with them, which is a named job, not an assumption.
Traditionally the mothers, at the start of the ceremony or just before the processional. Anyone can: a grandparent, an aunt, an older sibling, the friend who raised them. Where a parent has died, the family candle is often lit for them anyway and said out loud to be theirs — ask before assuming either way.
The scripts above invoke nothing. Where the couple want a prayer over the flame, that belongs to whoever leads that part of their tradition; the script introduces the rite, hands over, and picks back up at the pronouncement.
Questions
What do you say during a unity candle ceremony?
Four beats: name what the two burning family candles are for, send the couple to take a light from each, speak while both tapers are held to the center candle, and close once the center flame is standing on its own. The full wording for all four is on this page in a warm register and a solemn one. The beat that matters is the third — the wick takes longer to catch than anybody expects, and silence over a table is the thing prepared words are for.
How long does a unity candle ceremony take?
About three minutes, and most of that is not the lighting. The walk to the table, the wicks catching, and the walk back are the bulk of it; the lighting itself runs about forty seconds when the wicks have been lit once beforehand.
Can you do a unity candle outside?
Rarely, and it fails visibly when it fails. Any breeze puts the tapers out between the family candle and the center candle, and the guests watch the couple try again. Hurricane glass helps in still air and does nothing in wind. Outdoors, a sand ceremony or a handfasting does the same job and cannot be blown out.
Who lights the two family candles?
Usually the mothers, or whoever stands in that role, before the processional or at the very start of the ceremony. Where a parent has died, families often light the candle for them anyway and have it named out loud — that is a question to ask the couple, never a decision to make for them.
Do you blow out the taper candles afterwards?
Both versions are done. Extinguishing them reads as two lives becoming one; leaving them lit reads as nothing being given up, which is the reading the scripts on this page take. Decide before the rehearsal, because the only bad version is the couple hesitating over the table while the room watches.
Three minutes of candle. The rest of the ceremony still has to be written.
Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole ceremony built around this rite — the lighting wording in the register that suits the room, the lighter and the primed wicks on the rehearsal checklist, a cue card for the beat where the wick is catching, and a run-sheet with the three minutes already in the total.
The other rituals with their wording written out
- Handfasting4 minTheir hands bound with cord while the vows are spoken, and the wording that goes over the wrapping.
- Sand ceremony3 minTwo colors poured into one vessel — the outdoor answer to the unity candle, and the easiest to include children in.
- Cord of three strands3 minThree cords braided, one of them held by neither of them, named for a clause of Ecclesiastes 4:12.
- El lazo3 minA loop laid over both their shoulders by the padrinos, and lifted off by them after the blessing.