Lee Tran

*(Invocation)*

Family and friends, thank you all for coming today to share in this wonderful occasion. Today we are here together to witness and celebrate the unity of Britt Steed and Casey Rogers in marriage.

This is not the beginning of a new relationship but an acknowledgment of the next chapter in their lives together. Britt and Casey have spent years getting to know each other, and we now bear witness to what their relationship has become. Today, they will affirm this bond formally and publicly.

Britt and Casey will mark their transition as a couple not only by celebrating the love between themselves, but by also celebrating the love between all of us—including the love of their parents, siblings, extended family, and best friends. Without that love, today would be far less joyous.

*(Benediction)*

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,

With drowsy head and folded wing,

Among the green leaves as they shake

Far down within some shadowy lake,

To me a painted paroquet

Hath been—a most familiar bird—

Taught me my alphabet to say—

To lisp my very earliest word

While in the wild wood I did lie,

A child—with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years

So shake the very Heaven on high

With tumult as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Through gazing on the unquiet sky.

And when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings—

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden things!

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings.

*(Declaration of Intent)*

Britt, as you stand here before friends, family, and the Lord, wholeheartedly wish to unite in matrimony with Casey as your wife? Do you pledge to love her unconditionally with all of your heart. To comfort her in sickness and in health. To adore and encourage her in sorrow and in joy. To stand united in the face of adversity and celebrate together in the light of fortune. To honor, trust, and keep thee only unto her, from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?

Casey, as you stand here before friends, family, and the Lord, wholeheartedly wish to unite in matrimony with Britt as your husband? Do you pledge to love him unconditionally with all of your heart. To comfort him in sickness and in health. To adore and encourage him in sorrow and in joy. To stand united in the face of adversity and celebrate together in the light of fortune. To honor, trust, and keep thee only unto him, from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?

*(Vows)*

*(Ring Exchange)*

You have chosen rings to exchange with each other as a symbol of your unending love. As you place the rings, please repeat after me.

I give you this ring as a sign of my promise to you. With all that I have and all that I am, take you, to be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know, I will respect your integrity and have faith in your abiding love for me, through all our years, and in all that life may bring us.

*(Pronouncement)*

By the authority vested in me by American Marriage Ministries and the State of North Carolina I now pronounce you wife and husband!