CEREMONY STRUCTURE

Your ceremony should represent you as a couple and the new life you will undertake together. Your ceremony should be at least 20 minutes long; the length of your ceremony will depend on the various elements of your ceremony.

Several of these elements are listed below in the order they usually occur. You may think of others. Your ceremony is special, and unique, and should be put together in a way that best expresses your personal style and preferences.

This is a basic ceremony structure for reference:

	Statement of Purpose - Greeting
	The Giving of the Bride
	Declaration of Consent/Intent
	Exhortation to the Bride and Groom
	The Marriage Vows
	Reading of Scripture
	The Exchange of Rings
	Song – Reading (optional)
	Unity Ceremony
	Rose Ceremony
	Song – Reading (optional)
	Prayer for the Bride and Groom
	The Pronouncement of Marriage
	The Nuptial Kiss
	Presentation of the Newlyweds

SAMPLE CEREMONY

Celebration of Marriage

GREETING

Marriage is a supreme sharing of experience, and an adventure in the most intimate of human relationships. It is the joyous union of two people whose friendship and mutual understanding have flowered in romance. Today _______ and ________ proclaim their love and commitment to the world, and we gather here to rejoice, with and for them, in the new life they now undertake together.

The secret of love and marriage is similar to that of religion itself. It is the emergence of the larger self. It is the finding of one’s life by losing it.

To make this relationship work it takes more than love. It takes trust, to know in your hearts that you want only the best for each other. It takes dedication, to stay open to one another, to learn and grow, even when it is difficult to do so. It takes faith, to go forward together without knowing what the future holds for you both. While love is our natural state of being, these other qualities are not easy to come by.

The Giving of the Bride

Being assured that your love and your choice of each other as life long partners is in God's Will and that you have your families blessings, who gives this woman to be married to this man?

Questions of Intent

Groom/Bride are you ready to enter into this relationship with Bride/Groom believing the love you share and your faith in each other will endure all things?

Exchange of Vows

I, _________, take you ________, to be my husband/wife, my partner in life and my one true love.

I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever.

I will trust you and honor you.

I will laugh with you and cry with you.

I will love you faithfully

Through the best and the worst,

Through the difficult and the easy.

What may come I will always be there.

As I have given you my hand to hold

So I give you my life to keep

So help me God

Exchange of Rings

The ring is but an outward symbol of the bonds that will unite these two lives together. May this gift, from one to the other, be a constant reminder of all the bonds uniting your hearts, and of the joy it’s giving brings.

Place ring upon finger and repeat:

With this ring I thee wed, and my love I pledge to you.

Unity Candle

_____and ______, the two lit candles symbolize your separate lives, separate families, and separate sets of friends. I ask that you each take one candle and that together you light the center candle. The individual candles represent your individual lives before today. Lighting the center candle represents that your two lives are now joined to one light, and represents the joining together of your two families, and sets of friends to one.

Closing

Let us pray

Lord, may this couple remember when they first met and the strong love that grew between them. Help them to see the good in each other and to find the answers to all of their problems. Help them to say the kind and loving things to each other that will continue this beautiful relationship. Amen

As an Ordained Minister, in the State of ______, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.

Presentation of Bride and Groom