The strongest part of a ceremony may be the promise nobody needs a microphone to hear.

Ceremonies come with a great deal of apparatus: seating, timing, speeches, expense. Underneath all of it is usually one small thing being said by one person to another, and that is what everybody actually came for. The apparatus can support it or bury it, and a great deal of money is often spent on the burying. Guests remember the two minutes that were quiet far longer than the parts that were arranged.

If you are planning something, decide first what the essential moment is and protect it. Give it silence and time, and let everything else be judged by whether it helps that moment happen or gets in its way.