Chris and Tom's Short and Sweet Same Gender Wedding Ceremony Script.

Joined Hands Part I

Chris, Tom – Please join hands. Holding hands is a symbolic gesture, fraught with meaning through the centuries of time.
It symbolizes friendship, the promise that you will be true and loyal friends to each other.
It symbolizes union and the promise that you both will keep union uppermost in your lives with each other.
It symbolizes help and caring and the promise that you will both be there to help each other whenever and however that help and caring is needed.
Most of all, on this, your wedding day, it symbolizes love - joyous love, total and complete.


Chris, Tom, through this gesture of joining hands you show us all who assemble here your promise to act on these symbols not just for this moment, but for this hour, this day, this lifetime.

A READING

From Union by Robert Fulghum

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance through 22 years of commitment. Now that it is legally possible to do so, you decided to get married. From that moment of yes to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held over the years, riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks - all those sentences that began with “When we gain the right to be married”  and continued with ”I will and you will and we will”; - those late night talks that included “someday and somehow and maybe”- and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things we’ve hoped and dreamed and promised- well, I meant it all, every word” Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another- acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher. You have learned much from one another over the years. But shortly you shall say a few words that take you across a new threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same for either of you. For after these vows, you shall both be able to legally and officially say to the world, this is my husband.”

VOWS

Do you, Chris, take Tom to be your husband, your partner in life and your one true love? Will you cherish your
union and love him more each day than you did the day before? Will you trust him and respect him, laugh with him
and cry with him, loving him faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles you may face
together? Do you give him your hand, heart, and love from this day forward for as long as you both shall live?

Chris: I do.

Do you, Tom, take Chris to be your husband, your partner in life and your one true love? Will you cherish your
union and love him more each day than you did the day before? Will you trust him and respect him, laugh with him
and cry with him, loving him faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles you may face
together? Do you give him your hand, heart, and love, from this day forward for as long as you both shall live?

Tom: I do.

RING EXCHANGE

Rings are the universal symbols of marriage. They represent many things. From this day forward you will wear
your wedding rings and they will stand as a source of reminder…
Sometimes they will simply remind you that you are married.
Sometimes they will remind you of the commitment that you have made - for better or worse.
Sometimes they will remind you of the endless circle that they are and, like love, there is no beginning and no end.
But, for always, may they remind you that there is one other person in the world that has pledged to love you
forever, through it all, no matter what, with all that they have.

Chris, please repeat after me:

Tom, I give this ring in remembrance of this moment, a symbol of love that is complete, beautiful, and endless.

Chris repeats: Tom, I give this ring in remembrance of this moment, a symbol of love that is complete, beautiful,
and endless. 

Chris slips the ring on Tom’s finger

Joined Hands Part II

Chris and Tom please join hands

These are the hands of your best friend, wise and strong and full of love for you, that are holding yours on your
wedding day as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow and forever.

These are the hands that will work along-side yours as together to continue to build your future, but now as a married couple.

These are the hands that will give each other strength when it is needed.

These are the hands that will lift your chin to raise your face so they may look into eyes that are filled with overwhelming love for you.

And right up to the final chapter, these are the hands that, even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch.

FINAL BLESSING

May you be blessed by God and touched by angels
May you be forever blessed with love and friendship
May each day of your lives be a new beginning
May your home be filled with laughter and abundance
May you find peacefulness and beauty, challenge, and satisfaction, humor and insight, healing and
renewal, love and wisdom, as in a quiet heart
May your hearts stay full and your spirits connected, and may you love long and happily in one another’s arms

AND…

May you live happily ever after!

I now pronounce you married. Please give each other your first kiss as a married couple!