Modern Alternative Ceremony

Welcome to you all gathered here today for (Bride’s and Groom’s Names), wedding. 

It was the great medieval philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, who, when asked to define true love, said that it was "To will the good of the other person". If you truly love someone you want their success, their happiness, everything that is best for them. In the history of mankind, great lovers have died for the one or the ones they love.   

Nothing like that is called for here but (Bride’s and Groom’s Names) do want you to know why they are getting married today. They could have chosen simply to live together. This unquestionably is a "safer" course, would seemingly give them more options, seemingly sustain their freedom, and have less risks attached. They have thought about this and have decided that for them it is not enough.   

They see this ceremony today as a stronger commitment to their relationship. They call you together, their friends and family, to make this commitment clear to you and to call on your acknowledgement and support. They publicly call on each other to take the relationship more seriously.   

(Bride’s and Groom’s Names) recognize that they are very happy with one another. They recognize that they would not be happier with anyone else that no distant fields are greener.   

There is another element in all this. They love each other. With the philosopher, they will each other's good. They will each other's success, fulfillment and happiness.   

They know the main danger in a marriage relationship is the danger of taking each other for granted, of not appreciating each other enough.   

So they want to stay aware of each other. They know they must communicate with each other and be open to communication. This, they know, is a lot harder than it sounds. Words must be said softly, listened to carefully.   

Their relationship must be sustained by the will to express it, the loving word, the loving smile, the loving embrace, the loving favor, the giving with graciousness and generosity. They know not to take without giving, give without taking. A true lover knows what the demands of love sometimes cost the partner so they will to be sensitive, to be appreciative. And they remind themselves today that they must do these things without dominating, without smothering, without suffocating the other.   

They have assessed happily that their relationship is for life. They have found each other, they like each other, they love each other, they want it to last, they intend it to last, they will it to last.   

More than that, they will it to get better, they will it to get deeper. They want to be husband and wife. They want people to look at them and quote, as it were, the poet, Homer, who said 800 years before Christ:   

"There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife confounding their enemies and delighting their friends." 

VOWS: inserted here from Vows Section     

It is with pleasure that I pronounce the joining together in Holy Matrimony of (Mr. and Mrs. Name).

Embrace and congratulations by guests.