Ashley and I are very similar in many ways, yet come from very different backgrounds:

• I am Sri Lankan and she is American.
• I come from a tropical island exactly 1/2 a world away in the middle of the Indian Ocean and she comes from a land-locked state in middle America,  Kentucky.

The list could go on, but no matter how different our pasts are, the important thing is that we are very much One. We think the same way about many things, have many of the same tastes (well, most of the time) and like doing pretty much the same things.  One example: our idea of a perfect Sunday morning is wandering through the farmer’s market, sharing a chicken, spinach and cheese crepe and getting multiple samples of flatbread and hummus from the super friendly Afghani salespeople.

Subsequently , the sand ceremony seems to be a perfect way to accent our wedding day.

From: http://www.applebride.com/pages/Sand_ceremony

Like many wedding traditions, it is hard to pin a history to where the sand ceremony began. It has been attributed to indigenous customs in Hawaii. In Hawaiian ceremonies, sand from two smaller vials is poured into one larger bowl or seashell to symbolize the joining of two lives into one. If the wedding is held on the beach (which is traditional), the sand for the individual vials is taken from beneath the feet of the bride and groom.

What ever the history behind it, it does indeed seem perfectly suited to symbolize the coming together of our two lives, and therefor at our wedding;

Two vessels of sand will be poured together into a third vessel to represent the coming together of our lives. Each grain of sand in the separate containers represent a unique and separate moment, decision, feeling or event that helped shape us into the unique individuals that we are today. And just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so will our marriage.

In our case, we plan to bring together sand from the beaches of Sri Lanka and from Lake Cumberland in Kentucky to represent our individual lives.