The Wedding Ceremony- As performed for us by The Reverand Carol Huston

Marriage Ceremony for Michele and Dawyn :

GREETING/INTRODUCTION:

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together  to strengthen each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent, unspoken memories? — George Eliot

It is out of the resonance between individuality and union that love, whose incredible strength is equal only to its incredible fragility, is born and reborn. Today's celebration is the outward sign of a sacred and inward commitment which religious societies may consecrate and states may legalize, but which neither can create nor annul. Such a union is created by loving purpose, maintained by abiding will, and renewed by human feelings and intentions. In this spirit these two persons stand before us.

Tonight, as we celebrate the union that exists between Dawyn and Michele, may each of you also celebrate the sacred loves and friendships that have brought meaning and joy to your lives. 

READINGS:

Why Marriage? By Mari Nichols-Haining

Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...

Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...

Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold...

Because marriage means opportunity
To grow in love in friendship...

Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements...

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole...

Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me, I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage...

Because of this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

Excerpt from "The Gift From The Sea"   ~ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, mot in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

 

MINISTER’S MESSAGE

Michele and Dawyn, you come here today already a married couple. You first made vows to each other 20 years ago, and you have told me that they were unreversable vows, made before friends, family and God. No divorce possible. I'm not sure the majority of couples I have married in the past twenty years would have been so clear about that, and would have known intuitively that making those vows before your friends would bolster your marriage through the years, community support being vital to a healthy marriage.

You took those vows at a time when no national or state government in the world would have recognized your vows as legal bonds. Your action showed that two people who love each other and want to make a life commitment to one another should have the right to do so, no matter their genders or sexual orientations. Now finally a good number of countries and states, New York among them, have caught up with your understanding and we can be here together, to bless again your spiritual and legal union.

You are a married couple and a thoughtful one, and your selection of readings for this service certainly demonstrates that to me. I have never seen the first reading from Mari Nichols-Haining, but I am impressed by the way it outlines the practical side of marriage as both an opportunity, a discipline, even an achievement. Your second reading from Anne Morrow Lindbergh is one that I have used often, and I think the image of the dancers "barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern" is one of the most beautiful metaphors for marriage that I have ever seen. It reminds us of the fragile balance between individuality and union I mentioned earlier. You have built a life together, a life that has brought you to new places and allowed you to learn together, to grow together, to comfort and support each other in real diversity. At the same time. your love and relationship must encourage each of you to grow in your own talents and interests. Yes, you are two individuals, each with your own strengths and weaknesses, your own needs and emotions, and each with your own opinions. There are times when you need to encourage each other; times when you need to forgive each other; times when you need to stand together for strength and times when it is right and necessary to leave spaces between you, spaces in the dance pattern you share. Be sure to give each other physical space and psychological space so that you can continue- throughout your lives- to be the interesting individuals each of you has come to love.

You know, I am sure, that love itself is unpredictable and ever changing. There are times when love is sublime and transcending; there are times when it demands risk and sacrifice. But there are also times, even for the two of you, when your love becomes day-to-day humdrum, boring, when, as one of you said to me, the "well of love seems empty"- that's the most difficult phase of love, but it is one that all couples face. And the remedy to all this, the remedy when your love is not perfect, lies in two abilities I see in you. One is the ability to forgive. The other is the ability to laugh and see the irony of the situation. Those abilities will get you through.

One or two more points: In these times we all recognize that there is violence around us in the world, and, sad to say, in some persona relationships. And so, in every service I perform, I urge the couples to be gentle with each other. Treat your beloved as a blessing that has come to you. Respect each other in word and action. Remember that acts of kindness, understanding words and most importantly, laughter and a sense of humor will do much to resolve the pressures that come to all households.

Dawyn and Michele, your marriage did not begin today. I would say that your marriage didn't even begin 20 yrs ago when you made your first vows. Your marriage began when you were children growing into the women you are right now. It grew as you came to know each other, first as interesting friends and then as more than friends. We know that your marriage will continue, and we trust that the love you feel will continue to grow. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian Minister and abolitionist from the 19th century said " It takes years to marry completely two hearts, even the most loving and well-assorted. A happy wedlock is a long falling in love..." Michele and Dawyn, may you truly enjoy the long falling in love still ahead of you. May your trusting love and friendship be with you through the journey of all your days. Blessings on you.

INTRODUCTION TO VOWS AND VOWS:

The hand offered by each of you is an extension of self, just as is your mutual love. Cherish the touch, for you touch not only your own, but another life. Be ever sensitive to its pulse. Seek always to understand and to respect its rhythm.

I trust that you have freely given voice to your desire to be united in marriage, 20 y years ago and now again today.  Do you, in fact,choose freely and without reservation, to be a married couple?  If so, please answer, we do.

“We do.”

The vows you have chosen to make to each other are from a poem by Dorothy R. Colgan.   (I Promise  by Dorothy R. Colgan)

I promise to give you the best of myself
and to ask of you no more than you can give.

I promise to respect you as your own person
and to realize that your interests, desires and needs
are no less important than my own.

I promise to share with you my time and my attention
and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.

I promise to keep myself open to you,
to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost
fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.

I promise to grow along with you,
to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship
alive and exciting.

I promise to love you in good times and bad,
with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how. Completely and forever.

BLESSING OF RINGS

The circle of the ring speaks love freely given -- it has no beginning, it has no end. 

Today we bless the rings that you have worn for 20 years, so that they may continue to be a symbol of your pledge.  May your rings ever represent the oneness and harmony of your home, and may they testify to your yearning for completeness, reminding you of your privileged place within the endless turnings of time and space.

Wine CeremonY

You have already shared much together, times of joy and times of sadness.  You affirm here today your intention to continue, to the best of your abilities, to share all that life will bring you, enjoying each other's happiness and success to the fullest, and being willing to risk suffering when suffering comes to the other.  As you look to the future together, you know there will be hours of brightness and hours of shadow, for such is the nature of life.

 (Present a cup of sweet wine)  Life has, indeed, many bright and happy experiences, of which this sweet wine is a token.  As you drink of it together, may it serve as a symbol of the joy that comes with loving and sharing, and may you be strong enough to hold with your happiness a kind sympathy for those who have not found strength in mutual relationship and those who are less fortunate than you.  (Pass goblet to each, they drink and pass it back to minister.)

(Present a goblet of bitter wine.)  But when hardship and sorrow and disappointment come, of which this bitter wine is a token, may you care enough to help one another with courage and compassion.  When you must face risk in life, may you find strength in each other, neither one blaming the other for folly or failure, or regretting the obligation to share and bear together the chances and changes of a life deeply lived.  (Goblet is passed).

 I promise to share with you my time and my attention
and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.

I promise to keep myself open to you,
to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost
fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.

I promise to grow along with you,
to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship
alive and exciting.

I promise to love you in good times and bad,
with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever

BLESSING FOR A MARRIAGE by James Dillet Freeman

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring,
and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.

May you always need one another -
not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness.
A mountain needs a valley to be complete;
the valley does not make the mountain less, but more;
and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it.
So let it be with you and you.

May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise, often say, "I love you!" and take no notice of small faults.

If you have quarrels that push you apart,
may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.

May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another's presence -
no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side,
and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.
May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love, and may you find it loving one another!

 

PRAYER/MEDITATION:

And now let us take a moment for prayer or meditation, with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in our hearts

God, make Michele and Dawyn channels of your peace:

That where there is hatred they may bring love;

Where there is hurt they may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

Where there is doubt they may bring faith;

Where there is despair they may bring hope;

Where there is darkness they may bring light;

Where there is sadness they may bring joy.

For it is in giving that they shall receive,

By losing that they shall find,

By forgiving that they shall be forgiven.

God, grant that they may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,

To understand than to be understood,

To love than to be loved. Amen.

PRONOUNCEMENT

Dawyn and Michele, 20 years ago, and now again today, you have freely chosen to walk life's journey together.  In the presence of these witnesses, you have promised one another love and trust in the deepest friendship that can exist.  It is therefore my joy and privilege, on behalf of the divine spirit in and around us, on behalf of all these witnesses, and on behalf of the state of New York, to pronounce that you are and have  been a married couple.

It is your right and privilege, since last summer, to have this marriage legally witnessed and recorded, and so I invite your witnesses to sign this document now.

BENEDICTION

Now as you go together out into the world, may the days and years ahead strengthen the love and the joy and the hopes that have brought you together.  Go in peace.

PRESENTATION AND KISS

It is my great pleasure to present to all of you Michele and Dawyn, a legally married couple in the eyes of God, in our eyes, and in the eyes of the State of New York!!  Please share a kiss.