Photography: Non Religious Wedding Ceremony Script WELCOME Erin Kate

Officiant: Welcome, family, friends and loved ones. We are gathered here today,
surrounded by the beauty of creation and nurtured by the sights and sounds of nature to
celebrate the wedding of Lizzy and Pat. You have come here from nearby and from far away
to share in this commitment now they make to one another, to offer your love and support to
their union, and to allow Lizzy and Pat to start their married life together surrounded by the
people dearest and most important to them.

Lizzy and Pat thank you for your presence here today. They ask for your blessing,
encouragement, and lifelong support, for their decision to be married. They also remember
other loved ones who cannot be here to share this moment with them today. Those people
too, they hold dear in their hearts.

Pat and Lizzy, marriage is the promise between two people who love each other, who trust
that love, who honor one another as individuals in that togetherness, and who wish to spend
the rest of their lives together. It enables the two separate souls to share their desires,
longings, dreams, and memories, their joys and sorrows, and to help each other through all
uncertainties of life. A strong marriage also nurtures each of you as separate individuals and
allows you to maintain your unique identity and grow in your own way through the years
ahead. It is a safe haven for each of you to become your best self while together you become
better than ever could be alone.

You are adding to your life not only the affection of each other, but also the companionship
and blessing of a deep trust. You are agreeing to share strength, responsibilities and love. To
make this relationship work, therefore, takes more than love. It takes trust, to know in your
hearts that you want only the best for each other. It takes dedication, to stay open to one
another, to learn and grow, even when it is difficult to do so. And it takes faith, to go forward
together without knowing what the future holds for you both.
Bride and Groom sit or stand as they wish.

(Please give a note about friendship, how Pat and Lizzy see friends as "chosen family", the
strength in lasting friendships and they are important to them). In that spirit their reading
today will be done by Pat's childhood friend Matt Burgener, and Emily Lundgren, a dear
childhood pal of Lizzy.

DECLARATION OF INTENT AND SHARING OF VOWS

READING
A blessing for Wedding by Jane Hirshfield

Pat and Lizzy, please join hands, look at one another now and remember this moment in
time.

Officiant: Pat, please take Lizzy's hand and repeat after me.

Lizzy, I take you as you are/ loving who you are now and who you are yet to become/ I promise from this day forward/ To be grateful for our love and our life/ To be generous with my time, my energy and my affection/ To be patient with you and with myself/ To fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter/ To encourage you to grow as an individual, and inspire you to do so/ To love you completely/ These things I pledge before you, our friends and our family/

Officiant: Lizzy, please take Pats's hand and repeat after me.

Lizzy, I take you as you are,/ loving who you are now and who you are yet to become./ I promise from this day forward/ To be grateful for our love and our life/ To be generous with my time, my energy and my affection/ To be patient with you and with myself/ To fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter/ To encourage you to grow as an individual, and inspire you to do so/ To love you completely/ These things I pledge before you, our friends and our family/

Officiant: Pat, do you take Lizzy to be your wife? Pat: I do.

BLESSING AND GIVING OF RINGS

Officiant: Lizzy, do you take Pat to be your husband? Lizzy: I do.

Officiant: Please present the rings

Your wedding ring is a symbol of your promise to one another. The ring, an unbroken, never ending circle, is a symbol of committed, unending love.

Pat, as you place this ring on Lizzy's finger, repeat these words after me: This ring symbolizes my love for you/ and the commitments we made today

CONCLUSION & PRONOUNCEMENT

Lizzy, as you place this ring on Pat's finger, repeat these words after me: This ring symbolizes my love for you/ and the commitments we made today

FINAL BLESSING

Lizzy and Pat, you have come here today of your own free will and in the presence of family and friends, have declared your love and commitment to each other. You have given and received a ring as a symbol of your promises. By the power of your love and commitment to each other, and by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now share your first kiss as husband and wife. Congratulations. Friends and family, I now present to you the newly married couple. Let's hear it for 'em!

We Are Loved By An Unending Love