A Contemporary Ceremony
Order of Service
Processional
Invocation
Welcome and Greeting
Minister's Remarks (Homily)
Vows
Song
Exchange of Rings
Wedding Prayer
Bitter and Sweet Wine Ritual
Declaration of Marriage
Blessing
Embrace and Kiss
Introduction of the Couple
Recessional
The Ceremony
Processional
After the minister and attendants are in place, the congregation rises, and the bride proceeds down the aisle alone, or with an escort. At the altar the groom joins her, the escort is seated, and the service begins.
Invocation
The minister says: Let us pray. God of love and mercy, you have brought us here to join N. and N. together as husband and wife.
People: Love is patient.
Minister: You desire their happiness.
People: Love is kind.
Minister: You desire that they grow in wisdom and understanding.
People: Love rejoices in truth.
Minister: You desire that they live together faithfully in a covenant of trust.
People: Love bears all things.
Minister: You desire that they share their hopes and dreams together.
People: Love never ends.
Minister: You desire that they know the security of faith, the comfort of hope, and the joy of love.
People: But the greatest of these is love.
Minister: Bless them and us as we celebrate your love for us and their love for each other.
All: Amen.
Welcome and Greeting
The minister says: On behalf of N. and N., I welcome all of you to this place and to this moment when N. and N. express their love for each other and their desire to live as husband and wife. You are their friends and family, the ones they love, and your presence here demonstrates your friendship and love.
N. and N. have not come today to "get married." The two of them have already recognized what we as family and friends also recognize, that a marriage does, in fact, already exist. For some time, they have experienced a union of mind and emotion, a shared commitment to common ideals and a longing for the public recognition of this united spirit. So today, we gather in this place, in the sight of God and these witnesses, to affirm a marriage, to pronounce upon this union the blessing of Christ's church, and to send N. and N. forth as husband and wife.
Minister's Remarks (Homily)
In the 1996 movie, Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise plays a character who thinks he loves the woman who helped him maintain his career. As he struggles in his personal life and in his professional life, as he deals with a client who demands, "Show me the money," he realizes, through a series of misfortunes, how much this woman means to him. At the end of his tether, tired and weak, he stumbles into her house in the middle of a group therapy session, and there, before everyone, declares his love for her, saying, "You complete me."
As I recall, the object of his love simply waves her hand and says, "You can stop. You had me when you walked in and said hello."
There is something mysterious but sacred about the marriage bond. It signifies a commitment like no other commitment.
Why?
I don't know. But in some mystical but real sense, as you come together today in the sacrament of marriage, a union takes place that is beyond our understanding. Whereas you were two, now you are one.
N., N. believes that she can attain all that she hopes to be better with you than without you. You complete her and fulfill her. By being in her life, you give her the freedom to be the real person she is.
N., everything that N. is and hopes to be, all of his goals and dreams, he now shares with you. Without you, he is less himself. You complete him; you make him whole.
Teilhard de Chardin, the French priest and paleontologist, and author of The Divine Milieu, expressed: "Love alone takes us and completes us by what is deepest within ourselves."
This gift of completion and love is not really your gift to each other, but God's gift to you on your wedding day.
Vows
The minister may tie a ribbon around the hands of the bride and groom.
The minister says: Groom, please repeat after me. N., even as our hands are joined, so today our lives are joined. I join you as your husband, and you join me as my wife. We come together in the bond of love to hold each other, to caress each other, to support each other, and to love each other. I give you my pledge to keep my hands joined to yours as we journey through life together, and to walk that path with you for as long as our lives shall last.
The minister says: Bride, please repeat after me. N., even as our hands are joined, so today our lives are joined. I join you as your wife, and you join me as my husband. We come together in the bond of love to hold each other, to caress each other, to support each other, and to love each other. I give you my pledge to keep my hands joined to yours as we journey through life together, and to walk that path with you for as long as our lives shall last.
Song
The vocalist sings: "Beautiful in My Eyes" (Joshua Kadison), or "Butterfly Kisses" (Carlisle/Thomas)
Exchange of Rings
The minister says: May I have the rings? The minister takes them from the best man or maid or matron of honor, or both, or unties them from the ring bearer's pillow. Holding the rings aloft, the minister says: These rings are an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, which unites two hearts in love. They are especially significant because the circle of these rings is a symbol of the unending and enduring quality of the love which N. and N. share today.
The bride places the groom's ring on the fourth finger of his left hand and repeats after the minister: N., I give you this ring as a sign of my love and faithfulness.
The groom places the bride's ring on the fourth finger of her left hand and repeats after the minister: N., I give you this ring as a sign of my love and faithfulness.
Wedding Prayer
The minister says: Let us pray. God of the days, who enables us to make promises and live them in all the seasons of life, we thank you for your sustaining care, your abiding presence, your abundant grace which sustains us through the years. We thank you for the strong, yet elastic, ties of marriage which provide a place for us to be at home and give us encouragement to broaden our identity in the wider world. Even now, we acknowledge our struggle to give the time we need for healthy relationships, and the effort we need to love each other. Bless N. and N., as they resolve this day, having found the right person, to be the right person for the other, with your divine help.
God of our lives, we know our need to rely on your love and on the help of family and friends, so we ask you to bless all of us, and guide us, and love us, as we walk in relationship with one another and you. Amen.
Bitter and Sweet Wine Ritual
Two chalices of wine have been placed on the altar before the service. One is a glass of sweet, white wine, the other a very dry, red wine.
The minister says: The years of our lives are as these cups of wine, poured out for us to drink. We have the sweet wine of life, and the bitter wine as well. N. and N. now share these cups, symbolizing their commitment to drink together of the cup of life, in its sweetness and beauty, and in its occasional bitterness. As they drink, may these cups be for them the cup of blessing, a consecration of their marriage vows.
The bride and groom drink from one cup and then the other as they exchange cups.
In another approach, you may have two small carafes on the altar, one of a sweet, white wine, the other of a dry, red wine. Two empty wine glasses are nearby. During the ritual, the minister pours a small amount of the white wine in both glasses, then letting the bride and groom drink. The minister then pours a small amount of the red wine into their glasses.
While the couple is sipping the wine, one of the following readings may be read. The bride may read to the groom and the groom to the bride before they drink the wine..
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love,
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
-- from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine,
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
-- Ben Jonson
Declaration of Marriage
The minister says: N. and N., because you have come to be joined in marriage and have expressed your commitment to each other in the sight of your friends and family, and in the sight of God, by means of your vows and these rings, I declare that you are now husband and wife.
Blessing
Now you will feel no rain
for each of you will be shelter for the other;
Now you will feel no cold
for each of you will be warmth for the other;
Now you will have no more loneliness
for each of you will be companion for the other;
Now you are two bodies
but only one life is before you;
Go now to your dwelling place
to enter into the days of your togetherness,
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.
-- Native American blessing
Embrace and Kiss
The minister says to the groom: You may kiss the bride.
Introduction of the Couple
The minister says: I am delighted to introduce for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. N. or, It is my pleasure to introduce for the first time N. and N. N.
Recessional
"Spring" from "The Four Seasons," (Vivaldi) The couple and attendants recess from the sanctuary.