Friends, Jerry and Anna have invited us here today to share in the celebration of their marriage. In marriage a family comes into being. Be joyful in your family. Bring to your family an appreciation of the beauty of each other. Bring to your family a sense of comfort and strength. Bring to your family a joy and thankfulness for being together.
We come together today not to mark the start of a relationship, but to recognize a bond that already exists. This marriage is one expression of the many varieties of love.
It is fitting to speak briefly about love. We live in a world of joy and fear and search for meaning and strength in the seaming disorder. We discover the truest guideline to our quest when we realize love in all its magnitudes. Love is the eternal force of life. Love is the force that allows us to face fear and uncertainty with courage.
reading by Susan Funk:
The prophet Paul spoke of love in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, verse 13:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Jerry, do you take Anna as your wife, to share your joys and sorrows and all that the years will bring?
Jerry: I Do.
Anna, do you take Jerry as your husband, to share your joys and sorrows and all that the years will bring?
Anna: I Do.
Now that you have each declared your intention to join together in marriage, recite your promises and vows to each other.
Jerry, please repeat after me:
The leaves change and the seasons turn, but our love is constant.
Anna, I join my life with yours on this day and for all the days to come.
You are the one with whom I choose to spend all the seasons of my life.
I give you all that I am and all that I will become.
Anna, please repeat after me:
The leaves change and the seasons turn, but our love is constant.
Jerry, I join my life with yours on this day and for all the days to come.
You are the one with whom I choose to spend all the seasons of my life.
I give you all that I am and all that I will become.
request rings from best man
An unbroken and never ending circle is a symbol of completeness and a symbol of never ending committed love. As often as either of you looks at these rings, I hope that you will be reminded of the commitment to love each other, which you have made today.
Jerry please repeat after me.
Anna, I give you this ring as a symbol of my commitment to love, honor, and respect you.
Anna please repeat after me.
Jerry, I give you this ring as a symbol of my commitment to love, honor and respect you.
Jerry and Anna by their promises before God and in the presence of their family and friends have bound themselves to one another as husband and wife.
Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder.
This is a moment of celebration. Let it also be a moment of dedication. The world does a good job of reminding us of how fragile we are. Individuals are fragile; relationships are fragile, too. Every marriage needs the love, nurture and support of a network of friends and family. On this wedding day I ask you not only to be friends of Jerry or Anna but friends of Jerry and Anna together, friends of the relationship.
In the moment of silence that follows, I ask each of you, in your own way, to confer a silent prayer, blessing, wish or hope upon this wedding.
pause for a moment of silence
The Lord God, establish and sustain you, that you may find delight in each other and grow in holy love until your life's end. May you dwell in God's presence forever; may true and constant love preserve you.
I now prononce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.
I now present Jerry & Anna Dietenberger.