Wedding Ceremony With Readings

Song: Pachelbel’s Canon in D

On this very special occasion, we are reminded of all the rich experiences of life which have brought __________ and _____________ to this high point in their lives. We are grateful for the values instilled in them from those who have loved and nurtured them and pointed them along life’s ways. We are grateful for the values they have found by their own strivings. Within them is a dream of great love and the resources to use that love in creating a home that shall endure. May their relationship grow and mature with each passing year. As they divide life’s sorrows and lighten each other’s burdens, so will they multiply life’s joys by sharing them in love.

Reading from (Corinthians 13:4-8, The Bible)
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Reading from (Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle's compass come;
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

We have assembled to join in marriage __________ and __________. The bond of marriage is a binding covenant to be entered into only in the utmost of good faith and to endure for so long as you both shall live.

This union then is most serious, because it will bind you together in a relationship so close and intimate that it will profoundly influence your future.

That future will have its successes and failures, its pleasures and its pains, its joys and its sorrows. Yet, you know that these elements are mingled into every life and are to be expected in your own. And so, not knowing what is before you, you take each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.

Truly then, it is a beautiful tribute to your undoubted faith in each other that, recognizing the full import of your vows, you are nevertheless so willing and ready to pronounce them.

READING From:
Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms by Thomas Moore
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Live fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose!

____________, will you take this woman to be your wedded wife, to live with her in lawful state of wedlock?
(response)

__________, will you take this man to be your wedded husband, to live with him in lawful state of wedlock?
(response)

Please repeat after me

I, __________________, take you, __________________, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, so long as we both shall live.

Please repeat after me

I, __________________, take you, ____________________, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, so long as we both shall live.

[at this point, have the man put the ring on her finger]

Groom: ______, I offer this ring as a token of my love to be yours for all eternity.

Bride: ______, I accept this ring and take you as my husband.

[at this point, have the woman put the ring on his finger]

Bride: _______, I offer this ring as a token of my love to be yours for all eternity.

Groom: __________, I accept this ring and take you as my wife.

May summer’s beauty remain in your marriage and in your home. May there be warmth and gentleness, laughter, love and care and song of life through all the days that lie ahead. You are two individuals who enrich your existence by having a single life and sharing that life.

There is no limit to the beautiful facets your relationship will develop; for there awaits both of you all the joys of growing together in a life which you will share for years to come.

Whereby ____________ and __________ have consented to take each other in lawful wedlock and have witnessed the same before this company and have given and pledged their faithfulness, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving a ring, and by joining hands, now by virtue of the authority vested in me under the laws of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, I hereby pronounce them husband and wife and declare that they have been lawfully married.