The Ceremony

Welcome, family, friends and loved ones. We gather here today to celebrate the wedding of Kelli and Trevor. We share in this formal commitment they make to one another, offer our love and support, so they may start their married life together surrounded by the people dearest and most important to them.

Trevor and Kelli thank you for your presence today and ask for your blessing, encouragement and lifelong support to each other.

Marriage is perhaps the greatest and most challenging adventure. It must be built from love and patience, dedication and perseverance, talking and listening. Helping, supporting and believing in each other. Through tenderness and laughter, learning to forgive and to appreciate differences. By learning to make the important things matter, and to let go of the rest.

Two people in love do not live in isolation. Their love is a source of strength which may nourish not only each other, but the world around them. And in turn, we, their community of friends and family, have a responsibility to Kelli and Trevor. By our steadfast care, respect and love, we must support their marriage and the new family they are creating today.

No ceremony can create a marriage. What a ceremony can do is witness and affirm the choice to stand together as life mates and partners. So I ask now, Trevor, will you take Kelli to be your wedded wife?
Kelli, will you take Trevor to be your wedded husband?

Trevor, if you are able to keep the vows you take here today, not because of any religious or civic law, but out of desire to love and be loved without limitation, I ask you, to say your vows to Kelli.

[Trevor reads vows]

Trevor, do you have a ring for your bride?
Please repeat after me as you place this ring on Kelli’s finger. “I give you this ring| as a daily reminder | of my love and lifelong commitment to you.”
　
Kelli, if you are able to keep the vows you take here today, not because of any religious or civic law, but out of desire to love and be loved without limitation, I ask you to say your vows to Trevor.

[Kelli reads vows]

Kelli, do you have a ring for your groom? Kelli, please repeat after me as you place this ring on Trevor’s finger. “I give you this ring, as a daily reminder of my love and lifelong commitment to you.”

 HAND CEREMONY

Will you please hold hands?

Trevor and Kelli, in your hand is the hand of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you, now bearing a ring that symbolizes the promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and forever.

Each of you holds the hand that will work alongside yours as together you build your future. Hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch will comfort you like no other. Hands that will tenderly hold your children and will help you to hold your family as one.

These hands, even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch.

~

SAND CEREMONY

Trevor, Kelli, from this moment forth, your lives will no longer be two, but one. You have chosen to symbolize this joining. The sand in each of your individual containers represents all that you were, all that you are, and all that you ever will be. Your children, who will be deeply influenced by the commitments made here today, each poured sand representing their individuality and uniqueness at the beginning of this ceremony. When you pour the sand into the container, the grains will forever be inseparable, just as the union of your family, your hearts, your souls, your lives.

Kelli, Trevor, your love, rooted in faith, trust and acceptance, will be the foundation of an abiding and deepening relationship. No other ties are more tender, no other vows more sacred than those you now assume. Your life will have joy and the home you establish will be a place in which you both will find the direction of your growth, your freedom and your responsibility.

It is with great honor and by the power of your love and commitment and the power vested in me, to now pronounce you husband and wife!

Trevor, you may kiss your bride!