Medallion Wedding Rite Helps Children Feel Included

When Michelle Kelly told her 7-year-old daughter, Kati, that she was going to marry David Slaven, Kati seemed to approve of her mother’s decision. But as the wedding day approached, Kati began to express some of her fears.

“She accused me of loving David more than her,” Kelly recalls. “She wasn’t satisfied when I explained I loved them both, but in different ways. I know Kati thought she was being abandoned, because she refused to believe that David and I were coming back after our honeymoon.”

Both Kelly and Slaven were frustrated by their inability to ease Kati’s insecurities. They wanted to do something tangible to help Kati understand that she was going to be an integral part of their married lives.

Then, a few weeks before the wedding, Kelly read a newspaper article about a family-oriented wedding ceremony that was designed to emphasize the important role that spouses’ children play in the remarriage.

It was different from other marriage rites in only one respect: Children actually participated in the wedding ceremony and received from their parents a special medal and chain.

The sterling silver medal, known as a family medallion, is meant to symbolize family love in the same way the couple’s rings represent conjugal love.

Kelly and Slaven discussed the medallion concept with their minister, who then agreed to adapt the church’s wedding service to include the family ceremony.

During the wedding, after the couple exchanged rings and pronounced their matrimonial vows, Kati was summoned to the center of the altar, where she stood facing her mother and stepfather.

While the minister explained the family nature of remarriage to all present, Kelly and Slaven put the medallion around Kati’s neck and formally pledged to love their smiling daughter, “even as we surround you now with our arms of support and protection.”

Then the hugging started.

“They gave me the medallion because they think I’m special,” Kati said. “I know now that Mama still loves me, and David loves me, too.” Her mother agrees that their wedding ceremony was a key factor in making Kati feel wanted.

“The social, psychological, and spiritual bonding of two adults and their children from previous marriages is a very complex process,” said the Rev. Stuart W. Herrick, minister of the Rosedale United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Kan. “I’ve never seen anything that focuses on that bonding like the family medallion does.”

Since last fall, the medallion ceremony has been used in weddings of many faiths and denominations. It was begun by the Rev. Roger Coleman, chaplain of Urban Ministry, for the Community Christian Church in Kansas City, Mo.

“I was marrying more and more people who had children from previous marriages,” the chaplain said. “Most couples sought to include their children by having them serve as flower girls or ring bearers. But once these young people walked down the aisle, their involvement in the wedding ended.

So Coleman developed his own family ceremony.

This five-minute addition to the traditional wedding includes a discussion of the crucial role of existing children in remarriage, a formal commitment by spouses to care for all children in their new family, and the presentation of the medallion.

The medal bears three raised interlocking circles. The first two circles represent the man and the woman, and the third encompasses all the children either parent brings to the remarriage. Each child is given one.