Municipal Court Wedding Vow # 3

MARRIAGE CEREMONY #3

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Family and friends, and in particular,_____________ and _____________ .

We are here on this DATE day of MONTH, YEAR, because the two of you have decided to join your lives. You have come here with precious gifts: your love, your hopes and dreams, and your trust in one another.

You have resolved to share your lives in enduring love, and to be ever loyal to one another in all things. Those decisions have been made in your hearts and in your minds; and we are here today to witness the public expression of those commitments that you have made privately, to each other.

You know that marriage is a relationship to be entered into not lightly or without thought, but reverently and soberly, with deep purposes and in the spirit of enduring love. You know, also, that much will be required of you both.

And knowing this, do each of you wish to proceed with this marriage? If so, please answer, “We do”.

MUTUAL DECLARATIONS

His Full Name, will you take Her Full Name as your wife, to live with her in the honorable relationship of marriage: will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy; and will you live for her, before all others, so long as you both shall live? If so, please answer, “I will”.

Her Full Name, will you take His Full Name as your husband, to live with him in the honorable relationship of marriage; will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy; and will you live for him, before all others, so long as you both shall live? If so, please answer, “I will”.

REPEATING THE VOWS

Now, then, His First Name, please repeat after me: I, His Full Name, take you, Her Full Name, to be my wife, to live with you from this day forward, for better or for worse, in plenty and in want, in strength and in weakness, and to love and to cherish you, so long as we both shall live.

And, Her First Name, will you please repeat after me: I, Her Full Name, take you, His full Name, to be my husband, to live with you from this day forward, for better or for worse, in plenty and in want, in strength and in weakness, and to love and to cherish you, so long as we both shall live.

EXCHANGE OF RINGS

His First Name and Her First Name, you have told me that you wish to exchange rings as a token of the commitments you are making to each other.

Accordingly, His First Name, will you please take the ring that you have brought, place it on Her First Name’s finger, and repeat after me: “With this ring, I pledge you my love”.

And, Her First Name, will you please take the ring that you have brought, place it on His First Name’s finger, and repeat after me: “With this ring, I pledge you my love”.

And now, will the two of you please join hands as a symbol of your union.

His First Name and Her First Name, at this time I would like to speak, briefly, of some of the things that those who are here today wish for you.

Firstly, we wish for you that the love you share today will continue to give you joy, a zest for living and the energy with which to enjoy the challenges of life.

We wish for you a home, not a place of stone and wood, but an island of sanity and serenity in a frenzied world. We wish that this home be not just a place of private joy and retreat, but that it will serve also as a temple where the values of your life are generated and upheld.

We wish for you that your home might stand as a symbol of humans living together in love and in peace, seeking truth and demanding social justice.

We wish that your home might encompass the beauty of nature, that it has within it the elements of simplicity, exuberance, beauty, silence and color. We wish for you a home with books and poetry and music, a home with all the things that represent the highest strivings of men and women.

Should you have children, we wish for you children who will be not mere reflections of yourselves, but children who will learn from you your best traits and who will go forth to recreate the values that you shall have instilled in them. We hope that you will stand by them when they need you and will stand aside when it is time for them to seek their personal destinies. And we hope that you will pass on to your children the concept of family, not as an economic unit but as a transcendent force which brings people closer in time of joy and in time of need.

We wish that you have many times of joy, and few, if any, times of need. His First Name and Her First Name, we your relatives and friends here today, wish you well!

CLOSING

Now, then, His First Name and Her First Name, you have declared in the presence of these witnesses that you take one another as husband and wife. You have symbolized your marriage by the giving and acceptance of rings and the joining of your hands.

So Now, in the presence of these witnesses, and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the State of Wisconsin, as Municipal Judge for the Town of Salem, I hereby do declare that you are now husband and wife. Congratulations, and my best wishes to you both.