Bloggers

Stacey and I wrote our own wedding ceremony and it is the coolest, so I thought I'd post the transcript of the service (which took place at the Fist Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County, in Baptistown, New Jersey) for anyone interested in reading it or in using parts of it for her/his own wedding.

(By the way, Griffin was my best man and my brother and David Litvinov were groomsmen. The reception took place in the Frenchtown Inn of Frenchtown, New Jersey. It has the best food in New Jersey, a really cool and professional and personable manager in Colleen, and is the place where the contemporary classic novel The Day of the Locust was written.)

Anyway, here's our ceremony:

Wedding Ceremony – Stacey & Marc
March 9th, 2007

[Background Music and Processional – Phillip, piano]

Processional Order: Officiant, Groom, and Best Man enter
Seating of the Mothers (Groomsmen)
Groomsmen (outfits pictured here)
Bridesmaids (2, unaccompanied)
Maid of Honor
Ring Bearers (3)
Flower Girl
Bride [Brothers join her at the base of the aisle, escort her, hand her to the Groom and are seated. Children sit in front pews with parents.]

[Individual candles lit by Rev.]

1. Welcome

Today we come together in a spirit of reverence and love to celebrate a truly joyous occasion. It is one of life’s richest surprises when the accidental meeting of two life paths leads a man and a woman to proceed together along the common path of husband and wife. And it is one of life’s finest experiences when a casual relationship grows into a permanent bond of love. This meeting and this growth bring us here today.

For today we gather to join in marriage Stacey and Marc.

Marriage is a chance to experience all that life has to offer. To give friendship as well as love. To give strength as well as understanding. To share together sunshine and sorrow, laughter and tears. To play, create, achieve, work, live and love – together as partners and friends.

2. Recognition of Family and Friends

From time immemorial, weddings such as this one have been public occasions where family and friends gather to express the joy and approval they feel for the new union.

Let me therefore ask your parents this:
Do you, Ted and Cathy, and you, Diana, who have raised and nurtured these two, give your blessings now to them as they enter into this new relationship, and do you aspire in the days and years ahead to give them your deepest love, understanding, and support during both good times and bad? If so, say, “We do.”

[They said "We do," don't worry...]

And let me ask the rest of you gathered here today: Do you who know and care for Stacey and Marc give them your blessings now as they enter into this new relationship, and do you aspire in the days and years ahead to give them your deepest love, understanding, and support during both good times and bad? If so, say, “We do.”

[They did.]

[Check it out, here's my tux...]

3. Reading #1 (read by Maid of Honor, Traci)

I love you, not only for what you are, But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, But for what you are making of me.

I love you for the part of me that you bring out; I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart, And passing over all the foolish, weak things That you cannot help dimly seeing there, And for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings That no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you for ignoring the possibilities of the fool and weakling in me, And for laying firm hold on the possibilities of good in me.  I love you for closing your ears to the discords in me And for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.

I love you because you are helping me to make Of the lumber of my life not a tavern but a temple; Out of the works of my everyday, not a reproach but a song.

–Roy Croft

4. Solo piano performance: Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performed by Phillip

5. Reading #2 (read by Marc’s cousin Steven)

The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own. – “Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! – Selina would stare when she heard of it.” – But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.
– from Jane Austen’s Emma

6. Reading #3 (read by Caleb, Stacey’s nephew)

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness; for each of you will be companion to the
other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place, to enter into your days together.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth. – Apache Wedding Prayer

7. Reverend’s Message

8. Intention

We are gathered now to share this moment with you, as you affirm your love and your commitment to expand the areas of your lives that you will share with each other.

This is a commitment to share your lives generously, taking care to express the affection and the appreciation, and the mutuality you feel, yet, mindful of the need in each of you for a measure of time that is yours, unshared.

This is a commitment to listen when the other needs to talk, to talk when the other needs to listen – and to share always your honest feelings and differences, not to cause pain, but to avoid the greater pain that a hurt suffered in silence can bring.

This is a commitment to look upon each other’s perfections with joy, and frailties with understanding; and to forgive yourself and each other those weaknesses you cannot love.

This is a commitment to recognize that you have grown and changed from the you of yesterday to the you of today, and to realize that marriage does not forever fix you where you are, but gives you greater opportunity for change and growth than you have yet known.

This is a commitment to support and encourage each other through these changes, which are a part of the continuing process of life.

And, to take neither yourself, nor the other, nor your life together for granted, but to nourish each day, from which the next will flow, as will all the others to follow.

This is a commitment to respond to each other as you would to a trusted friend – with caring, love, and generosity – accepting the freedom and individuality of each, and treasuring the differences that both separate and join you.

And finally, to have faith in yourself and each other, and to keep faith in those things upon which you will build your life together.

Marc and Stacey, do you accept these commitments?
BRIDE and GROOM answer together: “We do.”

9. Vows and Ring Ceremony

[VOWS]
You may now turn and face each other. Repeat after me:

I Marc, take you Stacey, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.

I Stacey, take you Marc, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.

[RINGS]
Minister: May I have the rings, please? Repeat after me:

GROOM: In token and pledge of our constant faith and abiding love, with this ring I thee wed.

Stacey's Wedding Ring looks like this:

BRIDE: In token and pledge of our constant faith and abiding love, with this ring I thee wed.

Marc's Wedding Ring looks like this:

10. Unity Candle Ceremony

Minister: From every human being there rises a light of life. And when two souls are destined for each other and find each other, their streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.

[pianist will play short interlude during candle lighting and while the next reader moves into place]

Bride and Groom both light the unity candle.
 

11. Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (read by Ted, Marc's father)

Lord, make us instruments
of your peace.
Where there is hatred
let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that we may not
so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood
as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving
that we receive;
It is in pardoning
that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are
born to eternal life.

Amen.

12. Pronouncement

Minister: Marc and Stacey, since you have pledged yourselves to each other in the presence of this company, I do now, by the authority vested in me – as a minister and by the state – pronounce you husband and wife.

You may now kiss the bride!

[Recessional]

***

The reception had live music at the Frenchtown Inn, thanks to Karen Willhelm and her band.  Our wedding song was Norah Jones' Come Away with Me.  The bride and groom figures on our wedding cake were Spider-Man and Kitty Pryde (Stacey's wonderful idea!).

Following the reception, we went on to our honeymoon in Lambertville and New Hope, and stayed at the really wonderful Inn at Stoney Hill!