What place do ritual and ceremony have in the church today? (Non-Liturgical POV) Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, goes into great detail about the specific ways of doing certain worship-related things. For example, The ordination of Aaron is a highly ritualized procedure. The sacrifices are each a little different and are laid out as detailed rituals performed by priest and worshiper. Even the camp around the tabernacle was highly organized and only set out when the trumpets were blown a certain way.

Given the ceremonial aspect of all the rituals laid out in the Sinaitic law, the specific guidelines for priests and sacrifices, and the ceremonial and symbolic nature of communion and baptism, is there any biblical basis for rejecting ceremony and ritual? In the worship service, this would be a question for non-liturgical churches. For things like weddings and the like, please give biblical support for why the ceremony or ritual of the wedding service itself would be considered unnecessary.
As a Protestant evangelical under the New Covenant in contrast to Jews under the Old Testament, or various forms of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox denominations, the answer is pretty clear comparatively - ritual and ceremony have almost no place in the church today.

At the top level of the idea this is merely a division between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.  For most Protestants there are only two rituals   enshrined under the word 'sacrament' which force an external observation that would not necessarily occur spontaneously out of worship for God. These two rituals are baptism and the Lord's supper.  In contrast to this I do not know how many sacraments existed under the Old Testament but would imagine if they were counted it would be over a hundred.

So why the transition by God of over a hundred sacraments to two? A common starting point is often traced to Jesus himself who predicted how things would be aft he died, but left it to the Apostles to have those things revealed to them and subsequently taught by them after Christ ascended into heaven.

You will recall that all the ritual and ceremony of the Old Covenant was integrated and based upon worship in the temple of God on Mount Zion. In predicting the new order of things Jesus said:


  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “ Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. (John 4:20-23, ESV)


Notice Jesus made a contrast between the location of worship and its implied rituals with the 'truth' and 'in Spirit'.  Clearly Jesus was contrasting the 'external form' of religion with the inward 'truth' of it.  This contrast of ritual verses truth, implied that the ritual was within the old order primarily to foreshadow the reality but the worshippers often never had the reality within themselves. That is the point of ritual, it does not rely on the spontaneous sincerity of the people but prescribes an external rule.

This foundational statement of Christ is further established by the church in Acts that broke away from ceremony but in stead practiced brotherly love and community within peoples family homes.  Furthermore the Apostles established this freedom form ritual and the need to have genuine love in the Spirit in their writings and when referring to the God ordained rituals of the past said things like:


  For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. (Hebrews 10:1, ESV)


As far as subsequent traditions and ceremonies that may have been established in churches such as when performing marriage, burial, etc. These are not to be made inflexible rules but for those cultures that find more meaning with more structure around them, let them be free to enjoy such structure and form those who enjoy less structure and ceremony let them enjoy less.  The Apostles always relied on brother love and forbearing with each other's differences and the rule of church government.  It was only later that some denominations took upon the form of pagan governments designed to enforce top down authority as like a Monarchy.

Regarding those churches who do enforce top down government and want to return to many outward forms, most Protestants feel it is a betrayal of the Spirit of Christ and the liberty of the gospel so that it is a denial of the inward reality in accordance with predicted apostasy of the church among many:


  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:5)


Therefore although some tradition is alright and may be highly valuable to some, the external forms of tradition rather than the invisible doctrinal forms, are often considered the enemy of Christ if they become abundant and made mandatory as this opposes 'the spirit and the truth' in the gospel.