INTRODUCTION

JOEY & LIZ

Welcome everyone. 

buenas tardes y bienvenidos! 

Mbaiechapa! 

Shalom.

Con bon wa, yo ko so.

Bien venuti

Salam Alekam

Wilkomen

Bonjour

English

Spanish

Guarani

Hebrew

Japanese

Italian

Arabic

German

French

JOEY

On behalf of Mark and Molly, we’d like to thank you for coming from far and near to join us here, on this beautiful summer day.  A double big thanks most genuinely goes to ____for sharing their home, and enabling this day to happen.    Most everyone here has, in some form or another, a connection to Mark and Molly, and it is the blessing of your presence which will serve to celebrate and consecrate the union of two people we all respect and care for.   As witnesses to their initial union and participants in an ever-deepening friendship, my wife, Liz, and I, have been granted the honor of presiding over the marriage of these two remarkable human beings.  We are joined by Mark’s brother, Justin, and molly’s good friend, Danielle.   So without any further adieu, let’s get these two married.  Liz...

LOVE INTRO

LIZ

Today we join to celebrate love, not only between these two people, MARK ____and MOLLY____ , but between all people, between all living things. Love is the glue that holds our universe together. Its lacking, destroys it. We perform this ceremony in the presence of our loved ones to unite in a cheer for hope, an affirmation of the strength of dreams and the will to follow them.  To love someone truly and completely is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us. It does not solely mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person.  It is a huge inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in oneself, to become world, to become world in oneself for the sake of another person. Therefore, this day is also a celebration of faith, perseverance and the commitment to continue loving.

We believe that marriage is the greatest expression of trust and faith, without idols or rules except to be true to each other. To share reality, to be alive now, finding the present with another person, is to make living worth dying. To trust one another, this is the one thing solid in an otherwise random life.  May your mutual trust allow you to champion Love in all its forms.  May you feel Love’s promise.  May you take Love in, like a slow, deep breath.  And always remember to breathe.

INTRO TO TESTIMONIES

JOEY

In order to understand and appreciate the relationship MARK and MOLLY possess, one must first know them as individuals. Marriage is the union of two lives; two pasts, presents, future, a sharing of memories and people. Selves may not intertwine; but lives do, and shared memory becomes as much of a bond as the bond of the flesh. We collaborate together to root each other in a dimension of time longer than our own lives. Your friends and family are witnesses and co-creators of the relationship that brought us all here today. Their opinions, visions, beliefs, and actions, affected and shaped your lives, bringing you together, to who you were, what you've become and who you will be.              

     As such, we invite them to share their testimonies about MOLLY and MARK to complete the story of how they and we all came to assemble here today.

We would now like to call upon ____

TESTIMONIES

L & J

[Liz & Joey Testimony]

VOWS

LIZ

The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves without giving

our word.  Your future together will be shaped and formed by the words you use, and how you use them, whether they be in love, frustration, passion, or praise.  Communication is essential to a successful relationship.  May you value the strength of each other’s words.  May you always strive to be heard.  And may you never fail to hear the words trailing from your lover’s lips.  MARK and MOLLY, it is now time to say the pledges that will marry you. Please face each other

 (Liz hands MARK and MOLLY their vows and they read them facing each other. When they are finished, they will face Liz & Joey again)

RINGS

JOEY

Now MARK and MOLLY celebrate their love and proclaim their union with rings; rings round like the sun that illumines, like eyes that see clearly, like an embrace. They are circular, without beginning and end, for the love that is given unrestrainedly comes back round again and again. The precious nature of their rings represents the subtle and wonderful essence they find in melding themselves into a larger whole, and the subtle and wonderful essence they find individually, through their mutual love, respect and support. The metal itself represents the long life they may cultivate together; not only in years, but in all the infinite dimensions of each moment they share. May these rings remind you to cultivate the love that is a grace upon this world.

JOEY

Mark, my friend and brother, will you have this woman to be your wife, to live together equally as partners, in sorrow and in joy, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer as long as you both shall live?

MARK

I will.  MOLLY, with this ring, I thee wed.

LIZ

MOLLY, my friend and sister, will you have this man to be your husband, to live together equally as partners, in sorrow and in joy, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer as long as you both shall live?

MOLLY

I will.  MARK, with this ring, I thee wed.

CONCLUSION

JOEY

This afternoon MARK and MOLLY have, in the presence of their loved ones, shared significant vows and completed rituals to solidify their intentions.

LIZ

Now we, by the power vested in us by everyone here and the state of California, pronounce you,

JOEY & LIZ

Husband and Wife. May your marriage by lasting, fruitful and happy.

LIZ

We bless this marriage with honey. This taste is to help the sweetness in your marriage continue to spread. Remember to treat each other with respect and love and to always have sweet words for one another. May your mornings be honey-sweet; may your days and nights be honey-sweet.  May your lives be honey sweet.

[taste honey]

JOEY

Finally, we must remember that even in times of joy there is pain in the world. 

[Hand MARK glass to smash]

JOEY & LIZ

You may now kiss.

(MOLLY and MARK make out.)

LIZ

Would all family members and wedding party peeps please linger for photographs.  Everyone else should move towards the patio for beverages and orderves