Wedding Vows

With mutual growth and trust they are better able to explore life's realities, to form a richer future. The encouragement to grow and develop their own strengths brings with it an eagerness to share new discoveries and lends to both John and Karen a continuing enthusiasm for living. Thus each partner enables the other to grow, discover, and enjoy the freedom that is offered, and to reap the rewards of sharing. They believe, however, that their partnership affects all of you, that they have more to give you as partners than they did as individuals. They are marrying each other with the firm belief that it will be for life. They are overflowing with happiness today; be happy with them.

John: Karen, I offer myself to you, to be your husband. Let the goals of our life together be not my goals alone, not yours alone, but ours. May our love bring forth and fulfill the unique person in each of us and our strength as a couple.

Karen: John, I give you all that I am and all that I will become. Today, I offer you my tomorrows, that we may live our goals and dreams together. I love what I know of you, and trust what I have yet to learn. I respect you and have faith that our love will endure.

John: I, John, take you, Karen, as I know and love you. I have faith in your love for me and I, too, trust what I have yet to learn about you. I want you with me for all the days of my life, to share whatever life may bring us.

Karen: I accept and cherish your vow, and in return I promise you my love and trust. And though life may be unsettling, I will stay with you and care for you through all seasons.

Officiant: Let there be confidence, frankness, and freedom between you. Cultivate and cherish that sentiment of love which depends mainly upon the subtler and lesser things of daily and hourly experience. May your life together express a growing unity. Let your rings be a symbol of the unbroken circle of your love.

John: I give you this ring as a promise of my faithfulness and as a reminder of my love.

Karen: We will wear them as a sign of our love and commitment to each other.

Officiant: It will be the joy of each to promote the joy of each other, and that will not only bind, but blend your lives together. Insomuch as John and Karen have promised themselves to each other in this affirmation of their love and commitment and the dedication which grows out of it, I pronounce them husband and wife.

Officiant: And now let silence speak to our hearts what words will not say: the hazards and the wonders, the devotion and the rewards, the somberness and the joy of the union now begun.

May we have a moment of silence, please.

Your desire is to take each other as husband and wife. Will you please make your declaration to your friends and relatives here assembled this evening to witness your act and join in your happiness?

[The groom responds]

[The bride responds]

Officiant: Do you wish to exchange tokens of your promised fidelity?

[The groom responds]

[The bride responds]

[The bride and groom exchange rings and vows]

Officiant: You have declared together in wedlock and have given and received rings in token of your fidelity.

With the power vested in me by the state of Texas, I now pronounce you to be husband and wife — Gallagher and Ginger Doe.

[The bride and groom embrace]

[The officiant kisses the bride on the cheek, shakes hands with the groom, and congratulates him]

Reader:

This is the day of days
Not one that merely comes along,
Not just another day
to taste and throw away,
But one that wakens into song
and makes a growing, bright
Harmonious play of light.

This is a day of praise —
a day to raise
your hearts for all the countless ways
you have of caring
of sharing every measure of delight . . .
Knowing
The glowing pleasure that you bring to living —

This is your special day —
Today was made for you,
Every color, every hue
Should proudly be arrayed for you.

This is a day that brims with love,
With all the many meanings of
The embracing touch,
The warm response, the tone that means so much
So rich, so reassuring,
Endearing and enduring.

Here is a day that sings
With promise of a thousand things
To come — and stay

This is your day!

Officiant: Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. Yet most of us are unable to develop our capacities for love on the only level that really counts — a love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. Learning to love, like other arts, demands practice and concentration. Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity. In love, the paradox occurs that two beings become one, and yet remain two.

The affirmation of one's own life, happiness, growth, and freedom is rooted in one's capacity to love. Genuine love is an expression of productiveness and implies care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge.

We are here to celebrate the marriage of Gallagher and Ginger.

Groom: I, Gallagher Doe, want you, Ginger Roe, to be my wife, to accept my love as I accept yours, and to face the future together always.

Bride: I, Ginger Roe, want you, Gallagher Doe, to be my husband, to face the future with, always accepting my love as I accept yours.

Groom: I give you this ring as a promise of my faithfulness and as a reminder of my love.

Bride: I give you this ring as a promise of my faithfulness and as a reminder of my love.

Officiant: You have declared together in wedlock and have given and received rings in token of your fidelity.

With the power vested in me by the state of Texas, I now pronounce you to be husband and wife, Gallagher and Ginger Doe.