Ordained Minister & Wedding Officiant
A few words gathered over many ceremonies, offered to every couple who stands ready to begin.
As spoken beneath the arch
Come close, beloved, and let me tell you what I have learned from standing in this sacred place a thousand times. Love is not the fireworks we imagine in our youth. It is the small lamp left burning in the window. It is the hand that reaches across the dark and finds another hand already reaching back. It asks for no audience and keeps no ledger; it simply stays, and in staying, it makes a whole life holy.
We are taught to chase love as though it were a prize to be won, a summit to be conquered, a thing that ends the moment we possess it. But the truest love is not a destination at all. It is a path you walk together, side by side, learning each other's footsteps until your two strides become one rhythm. There will be stones along that path, and steep places, and mornings when the fog hides the way entirely. Still you walk. And the walking is the love.
Consider what love dares to do. It looks upon another person, with all their wounds and their wonder, their bright mornings and their difficult midnights, and it says without flinching: I see you, and I stay. It does not wait for the other to become perfect. It does not love the idea of a person; it loves the living, breathing, imperfect soul before it. That is a courage greater than any I know, and it is offered freely, every single day, by ordinary people who will never call themselves brave.
And let this be spoken clearly, here in the open air: love knows no single shape, and it never has. It blooms wherever two hearts turn honestly toward one another, in every union and every household and under every sky. The world may try to draw its narrow borders around the heart, but love has always spilled gently past them, the way a river finds the sea. No love built on truth has ever needed anyone's permission to be holy. It is holy because it is true.
So today, when you turn to one another and speak the small and shining word, know what you are truly saying. You are saying: I will be your home and your harbor. I will be the steady hand and the open door. I will choose you not only now, in the warmth of this bright hour, but tomorrow, and in the long ordinary years, and on the day when choosing is hard. This is not the close of your story, dear ones. Take heart....it is the first true page.
May your marriage be a shelter from every storm, and a window thrown open to every joy.
May your home be filled with laughter that comes easily and forgiveness that comes freely.
May you be patient when the days are long, and grateful when the years are short.
May you never grow so familiar with one another that you forget to be amazed.
May your love be a light to your family, a comfort to your friends, and a quiet courage to a watching world.
And on the brightest mornings and the hardest nights alike, may you always, always find your way back to one another....hand in hand, heart to heart, for all the days of your lives.
Amen, and amen.