How to include an Acknowledgement of Country in your Wedding Ceremony

Like many of you 2020, has given us a good shake up, provoked lots of thought and the desire to educate ourselves. We’ve been evaluating our own beliefs and knowledge and asking how we can take a step in the right direction.

One of the questions we have been asking ourselves is, how do we make a difference and give a voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? We feel that educating ourselves, having meaningful conversations and challenging prejudices needs to be an ongoing priority. As a practical expression of this, we also wanted to look into how to correctly incorporate an Acknowledgement of Country in a wedding ceremony.

In a nutshell, an Acknowledgement of Country is a sign of respect, recognising whose land you’re on and promising to respect them and the land. By including an Acknowledgement of Country in your wedding ceremony, you are actively acknowledging Australia’s history, that an invasion and colonisation has occurred and are recognising that the land was and always will be Aboriginal land, paying respect to the Traditional Custodians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders continue to experience exclusion, discrimination and oppression, and have since the colonisation of Australia, an Acknowledgement of Country, does not undo this but can be a good step towards reconciliation. 

“By researching and including an Acknowledgment in your wedding ceremony, you are educating yourself, paying respect to the traditional custodians and potentially opening up conversations with your guests…”

In order to successfully deliver an Acknowledgement of Country there’s a few points you need to get right. 
The timing is important, an Acknowledgement of Country should occur at the commencement of your wedding ceremony. It can be said by anyone, they can be Indigenous or non-Indigenous, so you could ask your celebrant or a guest. Finding out whose land you’re on is also important and is as easy as googling “map of indigenous Australia” and locating the area where you are holding your wedding. You can view the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia here.

Now for what actually needs to be said, here is an example script:

“I would like to begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the [insert cultural/language group name] people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are gathered today. I would like to pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders here today, also paying my respects to your Elders, past, present and emerging.”

By researching and including an Acknowledgment in your wedding ceremony, you are educating yourself, paying respect to the traditional custodians and potentially opening up conversations with your guests, challenging perceptions and hopefully effecting cultural change.

We want to say that we are by no means experts and still have so much to learn, but this kind of information is easy to find and readily available. We hope that as we all learn and change our thinking that all Australians would have a deeper appreciation for this great land we share, whose it was first and show compassion and respect to all.

For more information, we highly recommend doing your own research.

References:
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Reconciliation Australia