Coy & Jennifer

10-15-2011

Free Methodist Church

Pendleton, OR

The Ceremony Officiated by Rev. Stacey K. Miles

Welcome family, friends and loved ones. We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life's greatest moments, to give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, and to add our best wishes to the ceremony which shall unite Coy and Jennifer in marriage.

 The tradition of the father giving away his daughter began as a symbol of his blessing of the marriage. Mike and Cari, you have had the honor, responsibility and privilege to watch Jennifer grow into a beautiful woman. Today, Jennifer will become a wife and each of you will welcome Coy as your son into your family and trust in him with the responsibility once yours. So I ask now for the declaration of this trust and blessing,  Who gives this woman to this man?

Rachel, will you please join us for a reading?

“The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”
~ by Sir Hugh Walpole ~

***

Life is given to each of us as individuals. Love is shown to us by our family and our friends. Our heart is meant to be shared. We go through life dreaming, believing and searching for the one whom we can trust to share our heart, our love, our life. The one to love completely, regardless of flaws, faults, or imperfections. The one who returns this love.

Coy, you stand today announcing your search complete. You have found the one to love, honor, cherish and protect. To share your joys and worries, your successes and your struggles. I ask you now, before the community of family and friends with whom you have lived and loved, do you take Jennifer to be your wedded wife, friend and companion for all the days of your life?
 

If you will please take Jennifer’s hands in yours, and repeat the vows of your love and devotion after me:

"Jennifer, today, I give myself to you."

 "I give you my heart and my soul."

"I thank you for accepting me for who I am,

for never asking me to change."

"Today, I promise to love you in good times,

to comfort you in bad times."

"I will always be proud to call you my wife."

 "You are my rock and my best friend."

"With you, I have found the perfect love,

The woman I want to grow old with." repeat]

"You are the future I dreamed of."

"Today and all the days to come,

I will love you unconditionally."

Jennifer, you stand today announcing your search complete. You have found the one to love, honor, cherish and protect. To share your joys and worries, your successes and your struggles. I ask you now, before the community of family and friends with whom you have lived and loved, do you take Coy to be your wedded husband, friend and companion for all the days of your life?
 

If you will please repeat the vows of your love and devotion after me:

 "Coy, today, I give myself to you."

 "I give you my heart and my soul."

"I thank you for accepting me for who I am,

for never asking me to change."

"Today, I promise to love you in good times,

to comfort you in bad times."

"I will always be proud to call you my husband."

 "You are my rock and my best friend."

"With you, I have found the perfect love,

The man I want to grow old with."

"You are the future I dreamed of."

"Today and all the days to come,

I will love you unconditionally."

Coy, do you have a ring for your bride?

Place the ring, an eternal symbol of your love, on Jennifer’s finger, and repeat after me, "With this ring I take you to be my friend, my lover, my wife for as long as we both shall live."

 Jennifer, do you have a ring for your groom?

 Place the ring, an eternal symbol of your love, on Coy’s finger, and repeat after me, "With this ring I take you to be my friend, my lover, my wife for as long as we both shall live."

***If we can all turn our attention to the movie screen, we have a slideshow Coy and Jennifer haven’t seen.

It used to be said that in marriage, man and woman become one.  Coy and Jennifer, you have given yourselves to love; but you are not giving your individuality away.  It is your uniqueness that the other needs. That uniqueness drew you together.  You understand and believe that each of you is stronger for having two hearts, two wills, and two bodies to rely on and trust in.  Let it be known, from this day forth, that you stand—not as one—but together.

 Marriage is a promise that strives to ensure that his dreams will always be her dreams, and her dreams will always be his dreams. Coy and Jennifer, though the years shall bring each of you into greater age and wisdom, you will need to teach each other who you are, what you yet shall be. You will need to enable one another to know the fullness of being, for you are more than yourselves, and more than each other.

Elizabeth, if you will come share a poem with us?

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another–and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are–and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.

  Light Unity Candle-and-Jeff sings song

Jennifer and Coy, you have chosen to affirm your love by the lighting of a unity candle. If you could step to the unity table, and if Jeff could come share a song to share as you each light your individual candles, and together light the center candle, representing the unity of your hearts and lives.

***

Jennifer and Coy, a good and balanced relationship is one in which neither person is overpowered nor absorbed by the other. The strength of marriage comes not from a melting of two into one, but rather from a forging of two unique and valuable individuals inseparably to each other.

 From this moment forth, let love be your equilibrium. Let love be the forceless force running from heart to heart. Let love create that sacred balance that can dissolve all stress.

 Jennifer and Coy, it is with great honor and by the power of your love and commitment and the authority vested in me, to now pronounce you husband and wife! Family and friends, may I introduce, Mr. & Mrs. Michael!

 Coy, you may kiss your bride.