(Please note that any readings, vows, prayers and any other ceremony elements can be changed, rearranged, substituted, deleted or added as necessary.)
~ Welcome and Introduction ~
Minister: Ladies and Gentlemen, today we have gathered together to celebrate the marriage of (Bride) and (Groom). Many of you were present with them on the day they first made their vows in public. Many of you became a part of their lives afterwards. Either way, their marriage has had an impact upon you, and has touched you in some way, and it is the power of that affect which we celebrate today.
(Bride) and (Groom), today is your wedding anniversary and your celebration. On the (date) you took upon yourselves the responsibility of married life. This afternoon we gather here to renew your marriage vows and to re-affirm with happiness a new era in your life. It will be a time when you can concentrate on developing your continued love for each other, freer than you have been from the tensions and hassles, which characterize the struggle to become established in life and in nurturing a growing relationship.
This is a time when you can reassure each other. As you express to each other deep loyalty and loving trust as the continued basis of your marriage relationship.
The moment is, as it were, a plateau from which you can look together with gratitude and humility in your hearts on the years that have passed, conscious of the sharing, the caring, the joys and sorrows, of family life and of wonderful friends made; and you can look forward to the future with strength and assurance of even wider joys and experiences.
Both of you believe in marriage and in the fullness of the husband and wife relationship and you know that a deep bond unites you both together. All the stresses and tensions of the past have not weakened your love but have only made you more determined to stand by each other. This relationship is and must be very deep – as the poet says,
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of the cataracts”
Your relationship, I know, is as important to you as life itself. Today’s re-commitment should encourage you both to continue that dedication to each other so that you can look forward to a settled and contented future.
Love is both humankind’s highest achievement and life’s greatest gift. With love it is possible to live a life together, each seeking the joy, the comfort, the health, and the enrichment of the other.
Before you are re-joined together in marriage in my presence and in the presence of these your family, friends and witnesses, I would like to remind you once more of the serious and binding nature of the relationship you are now about to re-enter.
Marriage as most of us understand it, is a voluntary and full commitment of love and trust between two individuals who form one family. It is made in the deepest sense to the exclusion of all others and is entered into with the desire, hope and the firm intention that it will last for life. You are now about to reaffirm that commitment, not because there is any cause for doubt in the intention when the commitment was first made, but because your passion for one another still burns as strongly in that commitment now as it did then, and you simply cannot hold yourself back from expressing that commitment publicly. (And why would you hold yourself back?)
~ Vows ~
Minister: (Bride), (Groom), I ask you now to join your hands together and to pledge to one another your continued vows of marriage.
(Bride), please repeat after me:
I, (Bride), re-affirm my love to you, (Groom),
as I continue to take you to be my loving husband,
my friend, my love, and my lifelong companion,
to share my life with yours.
To build our dreams together,
while allowing you to grow with your dreams;
to support you through times of trouble,
and rejoice with you in times of happiness;
to treat you with respect, love, and loyalty
through all the trials and triumphs of our lives together;
and to give you all the love I can give
for all the days of my life.
(Groom), please repeat after me:
I, (Groom), re-affirm my love to you, (Bride),
as I continue to take you to be my loving wife,
my friend, my love, and my lifelong companion,
to share my life with yours.
To build our dreams together,
while allowing you to grow with your dreams;
to support you through times of trouble,
and rejoice with you in times of happiness;
to treat you with respect, love, and loyalty
through all the trials and triumphs of our lives together;
and to give you all the love I can give
for all the days of my life.
~ Exchange of Rings ~
Minister: And now, (Bride) and (Groom), you will exchange your original wedding rings.
Rings are an ancient symbol, blessed and simple. Round like the sun, like the eye, like arms that embrace…
Circles; for love that is given comes back around again and again.
Therefore, may these symbols remind you that your love, like the sun, illumines; that your love, like the eye, must see clearly; and that your love, like arms that embrace, is a grace upon this world.
These rings, which have no beginning and no end, symbolize the love and trust between you that has never ceased, nor ever will cease. May its presence on your hand continue to remind you of your love and vows to one another, just as they have for so many years.
(Bride), please repeat after me:
(Groom), with this ring I thee again wed.
Take it and wear it as a pledge of my love,
and as a symbol of all we shall share.
(Groom), please repeat after me:
(Bride), with this ring I thee again wed.
Take it and wear it as a pledge of my love,
and as a symbol of all we shall share.
~ Pronouncement and Kiss ~
Minister: (Bride) and (Groom), you have declared before all of us that you will continue to live together in marriage. You have made special promises to each other which have been symbolized by the joining of hands, taking of vows and the giving and receiving of two rings.
As you continue along your shared path of husband and wife, may you always be present for one another, be available to one another, and listen to one another – and listen to not only what is said, but also to that which is unsaid, for sometimes what is felt in the heart cannot be adequately expressed by words. So be present, and when in doubt, turn inward for the highest answers, turn to each other for clarity and understanding, and place your love for one another higher in importance than any challenge you may face, for there will be challenges, both internal and external. But through all of the challenges, the changes and chances of life, may you always remain true helpers and true partners to each other.
I declare now that the blessing of the Lord and His Universe be with you as the blessing of all of us will remain with you all of your days in this world, as husband and wife.
You may now express your ongoing commitment of love for one another with a kiss.
((Bride) and (Groom) kiss.)
Minister: Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you once again, Mr. and Mrs. (Last Name)!
All-Faith Wedding Minister 