Municipal Court Wedding Vow # 2
MARRIAGE CEREMONY #2
[Groom] and [Bride] in the bonds of matrimony.
Marriage is a civil contract whereby the parties are bound each to the other by solemn vows and promises. The essential feature of this contract is that the parties do promise and agree in the presence of at least two witnesses to become husband and wife.
Since you desire to enter into the state of matrimony, which requires your free, sincere and mutual consent, it will be necessary that you publicly, in the presence of these witnesses, make manifest the sincere intent you both have.
In addition to the civil contract, there goes with marriage a sacred relationship that makes it something more than a mere civil contract.
Embodied within the contract you are about to make, there is contained love, mutual help, respect, companionship, and protection of each other.
While marriage brings happiness and many joys, satisfaction and privileges, it also entails many fears, anxieties and responsibilities. The more these can be mutually shared with each other, the more patient and sympathetic and considerate each is with the other, the happier and more satisfactory the mutual
relation becomes. [Groom] and [Bride] do you wish this contract to be fulfilled?
Will you now join right hands:
[Groom] , Do you now take this woman whose hand you hold to be your
lawful wedded wife, hereby promising to love, cherish and protect her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and forsaking all other women, you will provide for and support her in all things as the laws of the state require, so long as you both shall live. Do you thus covenant and agree? If so, answer, I do.
[Bride] Do you now take this man whose hand you hold to be your lawful wedded husband, hereby promising to love, cherish and protect him, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and forsaking all other men, you will provide for and support him in all things as the laws of the state require, so long as you both shall live. Do you thus covenant and agree? If so, answer, I do.
Do you wish to bind these promises with a ring(s)?
Now will you place the ring upon the third finger of your bride and repeat after me:
With this ring, I thee wed, and pledge my fidelity until death do us part.
This gold and silver I give to thee and with all my worldly goods I do thee endow.
(If a double ring ceremony, then repeat the above to the bride).
The ring(s) is (are) a symbol of fidelity and love for each other. As the ring(s) is (are) round and without end, so may your trust, your love, your affection, and help, each for the other, be continuous and without end all your lives. You having, by the exchange of mutual vows in the presence of family and friends (witnesses) assembled here, united yourselves within the bonds of marriage.
Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the statutes of the state of
You may now kiss the bride.
CONGRATULATIONS BOTH THE BRIDE AND THE GROOM.