Traia Lynn Wensel

Please be seated, thank you

Welcome friends, family and loved ones.

We are here today to witness Cherish and Jeremy join hands in marriage.

We’re here to laugh with them. Some of you are here to cry (you may have already started).

But most of all we’re here to wish them well as they begin their new life together.

I’d like to say on behalf of both of them, thank you all so very much for being here.

I know it means a lot to them.

Love, like life, is dynamic.

Over the 13 years that they have already lived together in sin, Cherish and Jeremy have come to understand that every relationship is unique, and love changes from moment to moment.

But that change is in the direction of growth, of deeper understanding, and ever greater faithfulness.

Their love grows and changes as do the seasons, each life chapter in its time and fullness.

To start our ceremony today Cherish and Jeremy have chosen a poem to be read:

Mel reads poem:

Love is a temporary madness

Love is a temporary madness,

it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.

And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness,

it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.

That is just being “in love” which any fool can do.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,

and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches,

they find that they are one tree and not two.

—Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what we’re here to witness, the entangled roots of these two individuals that are about to join together as one united tree,

reaching for the stars together, sharing the same nutrients, weathering the same storms, growing together year after year

some rings thick and healthy, some rings thinner – reminders of the years where things didn’t go as planned, or the years that fires hit the reset button all around them.

Because real love is sharing a life together.

Like the poet said, any fool can fall in love.

Real love is what comes next. After the fall is over.

What happens when you’ve landed and all around you is normalcy once again and it’s time to do the dishes, or pay the bills, or pick up the kids from school.

There’s a great line from another poem by Adrienne Rich that says “No dust on the furniture of love.”

In that poem, the speaker is being tongue in cheek about the difference between falling in love, and the crash landing that happens for so many of us.

Cherish, Jeremy, we all stand here with you today and hold you up in happiness, but in a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, maybe even in a couple of years, real life is going to have to creep back in.

You will need each other to face those challenges. You will need each other as partners.

As equals, fiercely honest with one another and fiercely committed to one another. You have to be both. Honest and committed, because real love demands both, and a successful marriage demands a foundation of real love.

OFFICIANT (to couple):

Cherish and Jeremy, I want to urge you to hold to that vision of your love for one another, because all of us here are behind you and we’re rooting for you.

We are all here to wish you the best that life has to offer you both as you move forward as one united tree together!

Knowing this, it’s time to declare yourselves to one another.

DECLARATION OF INTENT

OFFICIANT (to Jeremy):

Jeremy , do you take Cherish to be your lawfully wedded wife from this day forward

- through whatever challenges and triumphs life brings you;

will you love her ,honor her and no other - for the rest of your life?

Jeremy: I do.

OFFICIANT (to Cherish):

Cherish, do you take Jeremy to be your lawfully wedded husband from this day forward - through whatever challenges and triumphs life brings you; will you love him, honor him and no other - for the rest of your life?

Cherish: I do.

VOW/RING EXCHANGE

OFFICIANT (to guests)

The wedding ring is a symbol of binding.

A symbol of attachment and of belonging, not of possession, but of partnership.

OFFICIANT (to Jeremy):

Jeremy, please repeat after me:

I promise to love you

and commit to you

my whole life.

I promise to be there for you when you need me,

to be honest with you,

to be faithful to you and you alone,

and to walk through the valleys of life together,

just as we will stand atop mountains together.

Officiant to Jeremy: Please place the ring on Cherish’s finger.

Officiant (to Cherish)

Cherish, please repeat after me:

I promise to love you

and commit to you my whole life.

I promise to be there for you when you need me,

to be honest with you,

to be faithful to you and you alone,

and to walk through the valleys of life together,

just as we will stand atop mountains together.

Officiant to Cherish: Please place the ring on Jeremy’s finger.

Jeremy and Cherish, having proclaimed love and commitment to one another in the sight of these witnesses and myself,

I am so happy to pronounce you, by the power vested in me by the Universal Life Church and the state of Washington Husband and Wife!

Jeremy and Cherish you may now kiss each other for the first time as husband and wife!

Before you walk back down the aisle:

Officiant to congregation:

Following the processional Jeremy and Cherish will be having pictures and ask that you meet them at the big tent if you can find it!

Thank you so much again for joining us today. This concludes our ceremony.