Toward the end of her 2022 summer solstice wedding to Daniel Byrne, Malia Carvalho and a friend put on light-up fairy wings and danced beneath the stars to express their connection to the spirit realm.

Ms. Carvalho and Mr. Byrne’s 77 guests had already witnessed a “ceremony facilitator,” as they called her, legally marry them in Topanga, Calif. Slices of their “snake cake” — which represented Kundalini energy, chakras and masculine and feminine unity — had been served.

Other touches also veered from the conventional, including a harpist playing “medicine music.” But Ms. Carvalho, 38, and Mr. Byrne, 41, who run Harmala Temple, a spiritual establishment in Los Angeles, said they wouldn’t have felt they were being true to themselves if they had hired a minister and capped the day with dance floor hits.

“It was important to us to honor our love and spiritual connection in an authentic way,66jogo” said Ms. Carvalho, who lives in Torrance. “We don’t really follow the mainstream.”

As the 2025 wedding landscape takes shape, it’s clear that other couples don’t, either.

Some brides and grooms use numerologists to determine the best wedding date. Some arrange to be married by a spirit guide in what they consider a fifth dimension. Others, like the couple who came to Tara McMullen-King last summer for help orchestrating a ceremony centered around inyeon, a Korean concept of fate and eternal love, hope to convey that their love transcends lifetimes.

ImageMalia Carvalho donned a pair of light-up fairy wings to express her connection to the spirit realm.Credit...James Lester PhotographyImageShe and her husband, Daniel Byrne, served a “snake cake” at their Topanga, Calif., wedding.Credit...James Lester Photography

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Mr. Biden even held on to hope for the transformative peace deal for the Middle East that he thought was within grasp a year ago, believing it could survive even as the war between Hamas and Israel tore at its foundations.

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