Unity Ceremony Ideas That Actually Last: Why We Created Something Better Than Sand

I’ve been making glass for a long time. Long enough to have watched thousands of couples choose their colors, pour their crystals together at the altar, and eventually send them back to me so I can transform them into something they’ll keep for the rest of their lives.

I’ve also heard a lot of stories about what went wrong with other unity ceremonies.

The sand that got jostled on the way to the reception and turned into a jar of muddy rainbow. The candle that wouldn’t light because of the breeze coming off the water at the outdoor venue. The beautiful layered display that looked perfect in the ceremony photos and then sat in a closet because, well, what do you actually do with a jar of sand?

I don’t say any of this to be harsh about other traditions. Sand ceremonies are meaningful to a lot of people, and candles carry real symbolism. But when Lee Ware created the glass unity ceremony, he was trying to solve a problem: what if the thing you made together on your wedding day was actually as lasting and beautiful as the love it represented?

Glass is one of the only truly inert materials on earth. Unless it’s broken, ground, or eroded, it doesn’t change. It doesn’t fade. It doesn’t separate back into its original colors over time. The piece I make from your crystals will look the same on your 50th anniversary as it does the day it arrives at your door. It might collect a little dust and a few dings along the way. But don’t we all?

There’s something else about glass that I’ve always felt and struggled to put into words. It’s a material that’s simultaneously solid and fluid, ancient and modern, fragile-looking and genuinely durable. It holds light differently depending on the time of day. It has a kind of ghostly, ethereal quality that I don’t think any other material quite matches. When I’m working at the furnace and watching colors blend and move, I’m reminded every single time why this material is worth building a tradition around.

And then there’s the thing that makes us genuinely different from any other unity ceremony option, sand, candle, wine, or otherwise.

We save a portion of every couple’s glass. Indefinitely.

That means on your third anniversary, or your fifth, or your twentieth, you can come back to us for an ornament, a pendant, a ring bowl, or a paperweight made from your exact original blend. The colors you chose together. The crystals you poured at your ceremony. We still have them.

No one else in this category can say that.

A client said something to me once that I’ve never forgotten. She told me she chose us because “sand spills, candles melt, but glass is forever.”

I’ve been making glass for a long time. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Nick Billalba is the co-owner and glassmaker at Unity in Glass®, the original glass unity ceremony.