Aida Unita Johnson-Rapp

INVOCATION

Celebrant:

A Beautiful Marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

Welcome, family, friends and loved ones. We gather here today to celebrate the wedding of Ciara and Justin. I am Aida Johnson-Rapp, a certified Celebrant. I am honored to be here today, before all of you, friends and family of Ciara and Justin, to perform this ancient and sacred ceremony marking the union of two people in marriage. You have come here to share in this formal commitment they make to one another, to offer your love and support to this union, and to allow Ciara and Justin to start their married life together surrounded by the people dearest and most important to them.

Ciara and Justin thank you for your presence here today, and ask for your blessing, encouragement, and support for their decision to be married.

Marriage is perhaps the greatest and most challenging adventure of human relationships. No ceremony can create your marriage; only you can do that - through love and patience; through dedication and perseverance; through talking and listening, helping and supporting and believing in each other; through tenderness and laughter; through learning to forgive, learning to appreciate your differences, and by learning to make the important things matter, and to let go of the rest.

What this ceremony can do is to witness and affirm the choice you make to stand together as life mates and partners.

Ciara and Justin, today you are surrounded by your friends and family, all of whom have gathered here to witness your marriage and to share in the joy of this special occasion. Today, as you join yourselves in marriage, there is a vast and unknown future stretching out before you.

The possibilities and potentials of your married life are great; and now falls upon your shoulders the task of choosing your values and making real your dreams. Through your commitment to each other, may you grow and nurture a love that makes both of you better people, a love that continues to give you great joy, and also a passion for living that provides you with energy and patience to face the responsibilities of life.

Ciara and Justin, today you enter as individuals, but you will leave here as husband and wife, blending your lives, expanding your family ties, and embarking upon the grandest adventure of human interaction. The story of your life together is still yours to write. All those present have come to witness and celebrate your love and commitment this day - eager to a part of the story not yet told.

Ciara and Justin, remember to treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Take responsibility for making the other feel safe, and give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.

When frustration, difficulty and fear assail your relationship, as they threaten all relationships at some time or another, remember to focus on what is right between you, not just the part that seems wrong. In this way, you can survive the times when clouds drift across the face of the sun in your lives, remembering that, just because you may lose sight of it for a moment, it does not mean the sun has gone away.

And, if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

THE MONITUM

Now I, Aida Johnson-Rapp, a certified Celebrant and American Marriage Ministries minister, am duly authorized by law to solemnize this marriage commitment between the two of you, Ciara and Justin, according to the laws of Illinois. I am bound to remind you publicly of the solemn, the serious and the binding nature of the relationship into which you are now about to enter.

Marriage, as most of us understand it, is a voluntary and full commitment of one person to another; it is made in the deepest sense, to the exclusion of all others, and is entered into with the desire, the hope, and the firm intention that it will last for life.

THE ASKING

Ciara and Justin please face each other and join hands.

Ciara and Justin, do you come here freely, and without reservation, to enter a relationship as husband and wife, as companions living together, as partners enjoying equality?

Couple:

We do.

Celebrant:

Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect one another, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow for the rest of your lives?

Couple:

We do.

WEDDING VOWS

Celebrant To Justin JUSTIN REPEATS THE VOWS LINE BY LINE.

"Repeat after me: I Justin, take you Ciara to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. (PAUSE)

I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. (PAUSE)

I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, (PAUSE)

loving you faithfully through good times and bad, (PAUSE)

regardless of the obstacles we may face together. (PAUSE)

I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, (PAUSE)

from this day forward for as long as we both shall live." (PAUSE)

Celebrant to Ciara CIARA REPEATS THE VOWS LINE BY LINE.

"Repeat after me: I Ciara, take you Justin to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. (PAUSE)

I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. (PAUSE)

I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, (PAUSE)

loving you faithfully through good times and bad, (PAUSE)

regardless of the obstacles we may face together. (PAUSE)

I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, (PAUSE)

from this day forward for as long as we both shall live." (PAUSE)

RING EXCHANGE

Celebrant to the Couple

"Wedding rings are made precious by our wearing them. Your rings say that even in your uniqueness you have chosen to be bound together. Let these rings also be a sign that love has substance as well as soul, a present as well as a past, and that, despite its occasional sorrows, love is a circle of happiness, wonder, and delight. May these rings remind you always of the vows you have taken here today."

Justin to Ciara JUSTIN REPEATS THE RING EXCHANGE LINE BY LINE.

"I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness. (PAUSE)

As I place it on your finger, I commit my heart and soul to you."

Justin places the ring on Ciara’s finger

Ciara to Justin CIARA REPEATS THE RING EXCHANGE LINE BY LINE.

"I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness. (PAUSE)

As I place it on your finger, I commit my heart and soul to you."

CIARA PLACES THE RING ON JUSTIN’S FINGER

JUMPING OF THE BROOM TRADITION

Celebrant:

We end this ceremony with the African tradition of jumping of the broom. Jumping the broom does owe part of its origin to slavery for the community to know a couple was married, but it is also part of African culture that has survived in the United States.

As Ciara and Justin jump the broom, they physically and spiritually cross the threshold into the land of matrimony. It marks the beginning of making a home together. It symbolizes the sweeping away of the old and the welcoming of the new; the sweeping away of all negative energy, making way for all things that are good to come into your lives. It is also a call of support for the marriage

from their entire community of family and friends.

The bride and groom will now begin their new life together with a clean sweep!

THE (A DESIGNATED WEDDING GUEST) HANDS THE BROOM TO CIARA AND JUSTIN WHO TAKE THE BROOM AND SWEEP SMALL CIRCLES WHILE THE CELEBRANT RECITES:

Celebrant:

“Touched By An Angel”, Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity

In the flush of love’s light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free

It is said that the person who jumps the highest over the broom will be the master of the house. So after we all count to three, you may jump over the broom and seal your marriage with a kiss!

CIARA AND JUSTIN PLACE THE BROOM ON THE GROUND AND JOIN HANDS, AS THE CELEBRANT AND GUESTS COUNT TO THREE, THEY JUMP OVER THE BROOM AND THEY BOTH KISS!

"Today you entered as individuals, but you leave here now as husband and wife, blending your lives, expanding your family ties, and embarking upon the grandest adventure of human interaction.

The story of your life together is still yours to write.

PRONOUNCEMENT

Celebrant to the Couple

By the authority vested in my by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife. You may now seal your union with a kiss.

Here ends the ceremony and here begins a wonderful married life. Family and friends, I present to you Mr. & Mrs. Justin Brown

END OF THE WEDDING CEREMONY.