Marriage Celebration
Dear Friends,
(Forrest made a few modifications to this – it is not verbatim, but similar.)
We gather here today to participate in the joining together of this man, David, and this woman, Charlotte, in the sacred relationship of marriage. Marriage is a spiritual bond. Marriage is a personal covenant and a public witness. Marriage is also a mystery.... a communion full of struggles and joys often more profound than either our expectation, or grasp.
David and Charlotte, may you enter the mystery of marriage with reverence and be nourished by its singular demands and gifts.
You have not come to promise one another eternal bliss or impossible dreams. Rather you have come to promise to make your partnership a gratifying and growing one, a real and resourceful one.
You have come to give yourselves in love, without giving yourselves away. You have come neither to overpower the other nor to be absorbed by the other, but to live gracefully alongside one another.
Have I properly expressed the spirit you bring and the purposes you have in standing before us today?
(Couples reply) You have.
There are many wishes that your community of friends may offer this day:
Charlotte and David, we wish for you a sense of humor that you may laugh regularly and heartily at your own foibles and life’s flaws.
We wish for you love in the details of daily existence… for marriages are fed or starved in the little moments. Whether eating around the table, furnishing your home, raising children, facing a hardship or walking hand in hand… make your moments sacred.
We wish for you a sense of kinship with the universe not of your own making, but related to your very beings… a cosmos from which you may generate beliefs which can sustain you, values which can guide you and mysteries which can inspire you.
Finally, we wish for you a total lifetime… for an enlivening marriage requires the imagination and energy, the ardor and planning of all your years. A satisfying marriage is a long, long growing in love. May yours be so.
I recognize that as this is a unique and loving community, in addition to these four wishes, there are as many more as there are people on this beach. I’d like to offer a moment of silence for us all so that silently within our own minds and hearts we can add our own wishes to those just spoken.
David and Charlotte would also like us to take a moment to remember the family and friends, past and present, who are not here to celebrate with us today.
{Moment of silence}
Now Charlotte's daughter Emily will read poetry by Langston Hughes:
{Emily:
In time of silver rain
David and Charlotte, you will now share your marriage vows:
{David:
My sweetie, our companionship is my joy. I promise to love you, to cherish and care for you. May we share the world together. You are a comfort and a wonder, and I adore you, Charlotte. }
{Charlotte:
My Sweet David, I promise to love you. I promise to nurture our relationship, actively participate in it, and be true to you. I promise to listen and respect you, and to be patient with you. :-)
I will take great joy in watching our relationship grow into an enduring friendship and partnership for many years to come. I love you.}
{Forrest:
(Forrest gave us a brief introduction to Maria Mitchell, an astronomer.)
Small as is our whole system compared with the
infinitude of creation,
Brief as is our life compared with the cycles of
time,
We are so tethered to all by the beautiful
dependencies of law,
That not only the sparrow's fall is felt to the
uttermost bound but the vibrations set in motion by the words that we
utter reach through all space and the tremor is felt through all
time.}
--Maria Mitchell}
As a promise that you will work together to fulfill these vows, you will now give and receive the marriage rings.
May I please have the rings?
These rings symbolize rebirth. A seedling grows, leaves bud, flowers bloom, and seeds return to the earth to grow again.
The circle is the symbol of the sun and the earth and the universe. It is a symbol of holiness, and of perfection, and of peace. In these rings is the symbol of unity, in which your two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle, in which, wherever you go, you will always return unto one another to your togetherness.
May the spirit of love bless these rings and may they be true symbols of the love of the one who gives it and the one who wears it. Amen.
David, would you place this ring upon Charlotte's finger and repeat after me:
Charlotte, I give you this ring
May it encircle your finger
As my love does your heart.
Charlotte, would you place this ring upon David's finger and repeat after me:
David, I give you this ring
May it encircle your finger
As my love does your heart.
Your lives are now joined in one unbroken circle of love, in which, wherever you go, you will always return to one another....to your abiding partnership.
In the spirit of truth and love, our hearts deeply rejoice as we have all participated in the beginning of this marriage relationship between Charlotte and David.
We wish for this husband and this wife courage and understanding as they partake of the intimacies and pains of marriage. May they be strengthening to each other in daily actions. May they be comforting to each other in crises. And through all their moments together, moments of joy and discomfort, frustration and fulfillment, may they remain ever caring for each other, ever communicating to each other, and ever growing with each other.
We offer these hopes and prayers for David and Charlotte as they begin their marriage together. Amen.
(Forrest added some required verbage about powers vested in me, state of California, etc.)
Charlotte and David, you may now kiss each other. :-**-: