Unlike most wedding traditions, the Unity Candle is a relative newcomer. Its appearance was first noted in the early 1970s, but it has become quite popular since then. The addition of the Unity Candle gives the couple’s mothers a place in the wedding ceremony, and adds a time within the ceremony itself for celebration and reflection.
The Unity Candle ceremony actually consists of three candles: two tapers with a pillar in the middle, all typically white. The taper candles, which are lit by the mothers of the couple at the beginning of the ceremony, represent the individual families from which the bride and groom come. Later, the bride and the groom each seize a taper and direct its flames into the Unity Candle, thus symbolically uniting their families through their own union. Some couples extinguish the flames on the taper candles, symbolizing their unique identity in marriage. Others leave the flames alight, indicating that they strive to maintain their individual heritages even while starting new traditions together. Either way, most couples keep the Unity Candle in their homes as a reminder of their bond.
The Unity Candle as part of a wedding ceremony actually has a significance which predates the one described here. As early as the 1960s, it was first used in church weddings with a spiritual, rather than familial, meaning.
The Bible says that a man is to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, "and the two shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:23-24 and Mark 10:7-8) In lighting the center candle together, the bride and groom symbolize, in the presence of witnesses, that they are now "one flesh."
While this speaks of the physical union of husband and wife, and the need for everyone to recognize and not violate it, the New Testament adds a further dimension to the spiritual significance of being "one flesh."
According to Revelation 19:7 and 21:9, Christian believers collectively are referred to as the bride of the Lamb, who is Jesus Christ. Besides being for human companionship, mutual pleasure and procreation, marriage is intended to be a human illustration of God's relationship with His bride, the church (all Christian believers).
It is often, but not always, the mothers who light the tapers at the beginning of the ceremony, representing the fact that they gave birth to the bride and groom. It is another expression of the father (or the parents) "giving the bride away," which now represents the blessing of the respective families on their children's union.
Some couples extinguish the flames on the taper candles, symbolizing that the marriage is bigger than either of them alone. Others leave the flames alight, indicating that they retain their individual personhood even while starting this new entity, the marriage.
Some couples keep the Unity Candle in their homes and repeat that part of the ceremony when celebrating their wedding anniversaries, as a way of renewing their commitment each year.
The above meaning of the Unity Candle ceremony (posted by Jamie Adams) came about because people who did not necessarily believe in the Biblical reason for it but liked the ceremony and wanted to use it, found another way to do so which did not require adherence to any particular faith belief. Either way, it can be a meaningful, even powerful, part of a marriage ceremony.