Andy James Still

GARRETT & LEAH

A wedding ceremony of delight, covenant, transformation, and home

CEREMONY EDITION

Prepared for Garrett Mora and Leah Atkins

Officiant: Andy Still

Jackson County, Missouri

 

Opening & Welcome

Please be seated.

Welcome.

Garrett and Leah, take a look around.

These are the people who have come because they love you, because they’ve shared some part of the road that brought you here, and because they want to stand near you as you begin the life that follows this day.

Today is full of beautiful things: the people you love, the music, the promises you have written, and the celebration waiting just beyond this moment— thankfully, Garrett assures me that he doesn’t have cold feet. Only hot hands.

We are here because Garrett and Leah have found love, and today they’ve chosen to give that love a lifelong direction.

Before God and the people who know them best, they will receive one another as husband and wife. They will speak promises meant not only for this beautiful day, but for ordinary mornings, difficult seasons, unexpected joy, forgiveness, and the quiet choices through which a marriage becomes a life.

So today we celebrate. We remember. We give thanks for the remarkable ways God has led these two people toward one another. And we become witnesses to the covenant they are about to make. 

Opening Prayer

Garrett and Leah, let us begin where you have chosen to place your marriage: in the presence of God.

Father,

Thank You for Garrett and Leah, for the lives that formed them, for the grace that restored them, and for every step that brought them to this place.

Be present in these moments. Quiet every distraction. Let the words spoken here be true and let the promises made here take root far beyond today.

Give Garrett and Leah humility, courage, forgiveness, and enduring faithfulness. When their own strength reaches its limit, remind them that Yours has not.

Remain at the center of the life they build. Draw them toward Yourself and, through You, continually draw them toward one another.

We entrust this ceremony, this covenant, and the life that follows it to You.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

 

Their Story

Garrett and Leah, every couple has a story. Yours began in a way that has become common in our world—through an app—but what happened afterward was anything but ordinary.

The app introduced two names. God introduced two hearts.

What followed grew through honesty, laughter, curiosity, long conversations, shared music, and the discovery that another person delighted in many of the same things. Somewhere between conversations about life, faith, favorite bands, and The Lord of the Rings, something deeper was quietly taking root.

Leah, what moved me was not simply that you prayed for a husband. It was the way you described God answering that prayer with remarkable specificity.

You saw, in details that might have looked small to someone else, the kindness of a Father who knew not only what you needed, but what brought you joy. Again and again, you found yourself saying, “God is that specific.”

Garrett, your story unfolded differently. You were not captivated first by romance. You were captivated by character.

As you watched Leah, you saw humility, compassion, patience, forgiveness, and strength. You described her with one word that stayed with me.

You saw a warrior.

Not someone hardened by life, but someone whose strength had been tested and refined. You admired that strength. You honored it. You did not want to diminish it.

And Leah, what you found in Garrett was something every warrior quietly longs for.

Not permission to become weak. Permission to rest.

You found someone around whom you no longer had to stand guard every moment—someone with whom you could laugh, breathe, be fully yourself, and simply remain. At one point, you realized something beautifully simple: you didn’t want to leave.

Garrett, your realization sounded different, but it pointed toward the same destination. You described quiet confidence. Peace. Relief. You could finally see a future without forcing the picture. Leah knew she wanted to stay, and you knew she wouldn’t have to leave.

Neither of you tells this story as though you found perfection. You tell it as though you found someone you could truthfully choose: someone safe enough to be known, honest enough to tell the truth, joyful enough to laugh with, and faithful enough to walk toward Christ beside you.

Long before today—before these rings, before these vows, before family and friends gathered here—you had already begun becoming home for one another.

Today does not create that love from nothing. Today names it, protects it, and gives it covenant form. 

Christian Marriage & Covenant

Scripture speaks of marriage as one of God’s great gifts: a covenant in which two people are known, carried, challenged, delighted in, and joined in a shared life.

That goodness is already visible in the two of you—in the friendship that formed so quickly, in the music and laughter, in shared imagination, and in the slightly astonishing discovery that God may care about the small delights of your hearts, all the way down to The Lord of the Rings.

Those things are not distractions from the seriousness of marriage. They are part of its goodness. God made room within marriage for attraction, romance, friendship, intimacy, playfulness, and joy.

Garrett, continue to be captivated by Leah. Leah, continue to delight in Garrett. Keep the music. Keep the laughter. Keep flirting. Keep surprising one another. Keep building memories that make no sense to anyone else—and perhaps… when possible, …

… keep the chicken parmesan from becoming a medical emergency.

Delight matters. And because delight is precious, it needs somewhere strong to live.

Romance can awaken love. Covenant gives it direction and a home.

Today, love accepts a name. Garrett, you become Leah’s husband. Leah, you become Garrett’s wife. That identity will shape thousands of choices no audience will applaud and no camera will record.

Marriage is built

• in the way you speak after a difficult day;

• in telling the truth - when hiding would be easier;

• in apologizing - without attaching a defense;

• in listening - long enough - to understand;

in choosing

• tenderness when you are tired,

• generosity when you feel overlooked,

• and forgiveness when the wound is real.

It is built in shared meals, unanswered questions, private jokes, daily prayers, and countless ordinary Tuesdays.

Christian marriage doesn’t ask one person to disappear into the other. It asks both of you to place your shared life under Christ, allowing Him to shape you into people who can love more truthfully, forgive more freely, and remain more faithfully.

Christ is not simply an honored guest in your marriage. He is its center: the grace you will need when patience runs out, the truth that reorients you when pride takes over, the mercy that makes forgiveness possible, and the faithful love that teaches you how to return.

Marriage is not God’s reward for finding a perfect person. It is one of the ways He shapes two honest, unfinished people into the likeness of Christ.

Garrett and Leah, you are not promising perfection today. You are choosing a direction. You are choosing Christ. You are choosing one another.

Through thousands of quiet choices, may the life you build become home: a place where both of you can be known, challenged, forgiven, delighted in, and continually made new.

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