[Kathyl]

Hi,
We are looking for ideas for our future adoption ceremony. We want to make the ceremony(in the courtroom) really special. We also want to include our 4 bio children in it.We also want to honor the CASA,social worker and former foster Mom. Any ideas???? Thanks

[taggrr2]

We just finalized in court on Monday - an infant agency adoption. I don't want to be a wet blanket but I'm not sure that the courtroom is the most appropriate place for this type of ceremony. Our judge happened to be very old school. We had to take the stand and testify and he frowns on women attys in trousers. I guess I'm saying you'll never know who you might get.

As an alternative, I might suggest hosting something at your home, the agency offices, a restaurant, etc. At our placement ceremony at our agency offices we used a blessing for adoptive parents and children from the Catholic Book of Blessings. It is not so Catholic specific and I think any Christian could use it. It has a place where the parents and children (if old enough) make pledges to each other. I bet it could be adapted for your bios and all the other instrumental folks. To get it I had to go to our church office and ask for a copy of the pages. Any church would be happy to do that I'm sure. Also, the beliefnet website has some good ideas and there is a book but I can't recall the title. I think you could find it in one of the ceremony descriptions on beliefnet. If I recall the site has descriptions for some Jewish and native elements as well. There might be some neat things for foster parents there as well. We also used 2 Steven Curtis Chapman songs and Testify to Love by Wynonna.

Good luck!

[MyGrlnme]

We had a wonderful judge who even got teary eyed and had adopted children himself ! However, they allowed us to take a few pictures and outside the courtroom, there was a little waiting area. There is where we did more pictures and later went to a restaurant. The court clerk would be the one who could give you more information as to what is and is not permitted. Often the judge has a tight schedule inside the court room- so your time is limited. I believe we were only in the courtroom for a matter of 10 minutes!!!! It went by so fast ! Good luck to you and enjoy your day ... its a very memorable one !

[amom4life]

We just went to court Monday for our friends finalization and you don't get that much time. There was time to sign papers take some pictures and the judge gave their daughter a stuffed animal. He had a bunch more case though waiting not too patiently on the other side of the door.

Then a clerk took us into the jury room and had their daughter make a handprint on a tile then our friend wrote their daughter's first name on it. It will go on this big wall in the hall along with several other handprints of all sizes that says " Blessed by Adoption". We thought that was pretty cool! That also means Elijah's will be up there in the future too.

As for a celebration...I'd have it at your home, a park, or a resturant.
Judy

[Sledge]

In our adoption for our 7 yr old the judge was awsome, after the formalities were over the judge let our ason sit up on the bench and pound the gavel to finalize it, took tons of pictures with the judge, lawyer, family. The kids all went back to school (believe it or not their choice) and handed out treats to all their classmates (our bio kids and ason) celebrating the finalization. That night we went out to eat and invited all the family members (we did not invite bfamily just grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins).

We also saved all the cards from everybody celebrating the day along with a bunch of the pictures taken throughout the day.

[Kathyl]

Thanks for the resources and ideas, I am curious what Steven Curtis Chapman songs did you use? Kathy

[taggrr2]

We used I Will Be Here which he wrote for his wife but it fits and I think it's called When Love Takes You In on his Declaration CD which he wrote for his daughter he adopted from China. There is a thread in the Christian area called Songs on Adoption with the words and other things. It was active around November but it shouldn't be hard to find. There are probably some other ideas there.

[JoanneFromNYC]

Like the others said, you don't get a whole lot of time in court. We took our caseworker and GAL out for lunch and then spent the day with our kids. They were totally overwhelmed by the whole day and we wanted them to have some quite time with us.
About a month later we had a catered affair at The Hilton with our friends and family and invited the former foster family, our caseworkers, the kids caseworkers and everyone else involved.