Unity Candles, Liturgical Sandboxes and Other Nonsense

Fr. Tim from the Ships Log has posted a humorous, but to the point post on unity candles and other wedding nonsense.

He writes:

Where it came from, nobody knows, but it’s not going away anytime soon. I’m speaking of the obsequious “Unity Candle”. Seems it was invented during the 1960's by some candle company. It spread like wild fire. Brides like it. Candle companies love it. It sells lots of candles. Couples planning marriage are now firmly convinced that Jesus Himself introduced the Unity Candle at the Wedding Feast at Cana. It must be there in the Bible someplace. I don’t think so."We studied the wedding liturgy planning book, Father, but we can't find where in the ceremony we’re supposed to do that candle lighting thing." This is not surprising. There’s no mention of a Unity Candle in the official Rite of Marriage.

The bold is mine.

He also writes:

The Unity Candle now has competition. There’s yet another “tradition” just being invented. Colored sand! I think its tribal - Apache, maybe. It's called the Family Sand Ceremony. It goes like this. There are two bowls of colored sand. These are mixed together, thus symbolizing the joining of two families. The whole congregation - even little children - can actively participate, says the promotional literature. Everybody gets something to do. Pastoral hint: be sure to keep a Dust Devil handy. There is a variation on the Family Sand Ceremony in which, instead of sand, shards of colored glass are used. I hope neither catches on.

Lest you think the good Father is kidding about the sand, he isn't.

The following are just a few of the websites I found about the family sand ceremony:
Sand Ceremony - Included picture of finished product.
More Sand
Even more sand

I was pretty sure that I saw tables just like these at the last fair I attended. I don't remember it costing $70 there and I still thought it was foolish. At the fair is it only foolish. During the Mass it is abomination. More taking focus off Christ and onto errr...sand???