Sunlight Vs Moonlight – The Friday Fight-Out Eclipse Special!

We’ve thought long and hard as to how to make a tenuous link between today’s solar eclipse and an interesting wedding debate, ranging from SUNday Vs MOONday through to some frankly ridiculous Jaffa Cake arguments (Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse) and perhaps even more worryingly just us talking about cheese. No debate, just basically mmm… cheeeeeeeese. I digress. In the end we’ve settled on a topic that actually deserves some due consideration (cheese does of course deserve consideration too but the answer is simply yes, yes you should have some cheese) and therefore this week’s Friday Fight-Out goes for the blindingly (see what we’ve done there) obvious yet rarely raised question when it to comes to the timing of your wedding ceremony: Sunlight Vs Moonlight

In the Red Corner, she’s known as a low-light photography specialist and is loving the idea of a moonlit ceremony, it’s Dom “The Tog Bride”

In the Blue Corner, arguing for the more traditional sunlit approach, mostly because he and his mates would generally be pretty hammered at a wedding by the time the moon comes out, it’s Matt “The Gormless Groom”

Sunlight Vs Moonlight

FIGHT!!!

Dom: Couples are always looking for something to make their wedding stand out and be completely unique and what could be more special than a moonlit ceremony beneath the stars?

Matt: But if your ceremony isn’t taking place until after dark then you will have missed an entire day of celebrations! Your wedding is about the whole day, not just the ceremony!

Dom: But why do the celebrations have to only take place after you are officially married? Why not throw out all of the conventions and do things completely uniquely by having pre-wedding celebrations throughout the day to build up the excitement to the ceremony itself? As long as you’re not too worried about the tradition of the bride and groom not seeing each other until the ceremony itself you could have an amazing first look in the morning then spend the day celebrating your impending nuptials and a party to continue the celebrations afterwards!

Matt: But if you’ve been celebrating all day then by the time the ceremony comes around you and the guests are likely to be getting tired and potentially somewhat tipsy by the time the ceremony comes around which could take away rather from the beauty of the ceremony.

Dom: There’s also the option that you could spread the wedding over two days with an evening ceremony on the first day and then the celebrations start the following day. That way you could make your wedding an even bigger occasion and spend the whole weekend with all of your guests and loved ones and enjoy the best of both worlds!

Matt: Whilst the legalities on getting married at different times of day might now allow an evening ceremony, it might be very difficult to find someone to conduct the ceremony for you at such an unusual time of day as well as being more tricky to find other suppliers who are happy/able to work around such an unusual timing too.

Dom: If you were struggling to find someone to conduct the legal ceremony at night you could always hold a Humanist ceremony in the evening and perhaps have a simple legal ceremony at the registry office earlier in the day. That way you could have a small ceremony for family and then a larger event for friends to join later on!

Matt: Getting married by moonlight is a lovely idea but if cloud is blocking the moonlight then you’re going to lose a lot of the romance of the occasion and even with the moon shining brightly you’re going to need to find additional lighting which could be logistically complex and potentially expensive. It’s also likely to be very cold for the guests at night which might turn a lovely idea into something rather uncomfortable, particularly for young children or elderly guests.

Dom: Lighting doesn’t have to be expensive – it would be amazing to light up the area with hundreds of candles or even have large flambeaux flames lighting up the aisle which would also give out a fair amount of heat! You could even have the ceremony take place in front of a bonfire for something truly dramatic and guests can easily be issued with blankets and even hot water bottles to keep them warm throughout the ceremony! You can also supplement the lighting with cheap battery powered LED lights to help make sure everyone can see the Bride and Groom fully.

Matt: An outdoor wedding in the sunshine is just as beautiful (if not more so) as doing it at night and means you can truly enjoy the beauty of your surroundings that would otherwise be masked in darkness. When you imagine the birds singing during your ceremony the owl is not generally the bird I would choose!

So those are our thoughts but where do you stand? Would you consider having your ceremony at night? We’d love to hear from you so just leave a comment to join the debate!