We Are Gathered Together...

The following is a plan for a neoPagan wedding celebration. It is based upon the one I wrote for me and my wife when her exhusband drug his heels enough that their divorce was obviously not going to be final by the time that we'd scheduled the wedding. So, we had a celebration *of* our marriage as opposed to the marriage itself. I figured he'd screwed up his own union with her, I wasn't going to let him screw up anything about mine.

Plan of service:

Opening

Entrance of Bride and Groom

Welcome

Benediction/Invocation of the Elements

Readings

Family and Community Pledges of Support

Question of Intent

Exchange of Vows

Exchange of Rings/Partaking of the Elements

Pronouncement of (pending) Marriage

Presentation of Couple

Invitation to Reception/Announcment of Day's Schedule

Opening:

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

My Lords and Ladies, assembled family and friends, good folk all, may we borrow your eyes and your ears to pay heed and bear witness to this, the celebration of the marriage of our friends....

Entrance of Bride and Groom:

[ushers help audience to places as need be]

[background music shifts to parade song TBA]

[groom appears at back of room]

[bride appears upstairs and proceeds down to groom]

[groom takes bride's hand and they come down aisle]

Welcome:

Our friends have invited us here today to witness and share with them their celebration of their marriage---their wedding.

We come together on this joyous day, not to mark the beginning of a relationship, but to bear recognition to an existing bond. This marriage is one expression of the variety that is love. Love is inifite in its expressions, but, ultimately, Love is being as one.

It is fitting to speak briefly about love. In a world of joy and fear, we live amid the seeming disorder, searching for meaning and strength. The truest guideline we have on this quest comes when we discover love in all its magnitudes. Love is the eternal force of life---the force that gives us the courage to face the fear and the freedom to revel in the joy.

In that freedom, however, must come caution and carefulness.

For the giving of yourself in love is difficult, for you must learn to give of your love without total submission of yourself. Therefore, in your giving, give all that encompasses your life. Your joy, sadness, interests, disinterests, knowledge, and, even, your ignorance are all expressions of you---of your life. Understand that you must give of these things, but remember to reserve something for yourself as well. In giving of your love, you must still preserve your integrity and individuality. This is the challenge of love within marriage.

Benediction/Invocation of the Elements:

Love within marriage is, indeed, a challenge. One that, while firmly within the scope of our friends' abilities, is not diminished by the help of outside forces.

[celebrant signifies for assistant to light incense and candles]

We begin by asking those forces for that help, both in blessing this union, and in casting their protection around us in our workings today.

[taking up incense]

[taking up bowl]

[taking up mortar]

[taking up lit candle]

[insert proper Quartering ritual, including smudging of space, spritzing, casting of salt, and lighting of candles]

All gods, goddesses, and powers that be...surround us now with good and glad energies, and protect us from any evil intent or intrusion as we open our spirits to the All in the performance of this mystery---the joining and bonding of the man and woman coming here today in the all-encompassing committment that is marriage.

Readings:

Marriage and love encompass much in the world. We listen now to some readings that our friends feel reflect some of how they feel about these things this day.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no, it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken,

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, thought rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come,

Love alters not with brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even unto the edge of doom;

If this be error, and unto me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116"

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores

of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from

the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let

each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they

quiver with the same music.

Kahlil Gabran, "The Prophet"

You ask what is this love we here affirm, and I answer,

it is a covenant you make, one with the other, a covenant

born of committment to each other's well-being and growth

and committment to your relationship itself, allowing it the

possibility of change and of growth. And so the covenant reads:

Take time for each other and act always from a caring

position. Allow each other time alone for renewal and

creativity. Be as honest as possible about feelings as

well as actions. Share household and routine tasks

with role reversal as a reality. Listen to each other with

intent beyond the words. Allow other relationships and

committments in your lives. And make room in your

covenant for the children of your love and when the time

comes to let them go, do so with joy and caring; then

come to your primary relationship with fresh commitments

to new beginnings.

Betty Pingel

Family and Community Pledge of Support:

All of us gathered here today are here because we, as family and friends to the couple celebrated today, likewise have a committment. We are their community. As such, we are here not merely to bear witness to their committments to each other, but also to make such ourselves.

We must do our part to affirm them in their love and in the mystery of their marriage.

[ask the family members to stand]

As the families of our friends, I would ask you to make a pledge of your own.

I ask you to support them in their marriage with your love, patience, understanding, and, even, your silence...each as it is needed.

I ask you to honor their committment to each other and to their marriage, and to understand that times may come where that committment will have to come before their love and committment to you.

I ask you to help them, when times are difficult, to remember all the good in each other and in their marriage, and to support their unity.

Will you make this pledge?

[pause for response]

[thank family, ask them to be seated]

[ask friends of the couple to stand]

As friends of today's couple, we may not necessarily know them any better or worse than their families do, but often we have more of a constant presence in their lives. We often have more contact and influence on them on a day-to-day basis than even their closest family members. As such, I would ask a similar pledge of you.

I ask you to support them in their marriage with love, patience, understanding, and, again, your silence...each as it is needed.

I ask that you honor their committment to each other and to their marriage, to help them bask in the fire of their romance without overindulging yourself in the heat and light cast off by it.

I ask you to help them, when times are difficult, to bury the bad or hurt feelings and return to the joy and laughter that first brought them together as one.

Will you make this pledge?

[pause for response]

[thank friends, ask them to be seated]

Question of Intent:

Now, then, we have heard the pledges of your family and friends, and we prepare to hear from you as well. First, however, there is the question of intent.

[turn to the groom]

Do you come before this gathering of friends and family to proclaim your love and devotion for this woman? Do you promise to affirm her, respect her, and care for her during times of joy and hardness? Do you commit yourself to share your feelings of happiness and sadness? Do you pledge to remain faithful to her?

[pause for response]

[turn to the bride]

Do you come before this gathering of friends and family to proclain your love and devotion for this man? Do you promise to affirm him, respect him, and care for him during times of joy and hardness? Do you commit yourself to share your feelings of happiness and sadness? Do you pledge to remain faithful to him?

[pause for response]

Exchange of Vows:

How do you pledge your love?

[Groom says] I promise to give you my love, to accept and cherish your love, to help you when you need me. I promise to be your faithful husband in joy and in sorrow, and in sickness and in health.

How do you pledge your love?

[Bride says] I promise to give you my love, to accept and cherish your love, to help you when you need me. I promise to be your faithful wife in joy and in sorrow, and in sickness and in health.

Exchange of Rings/Partaking of the Elements:

[celebrant asks for rings]

[during speech, hand rings to couple]

There are many theories on how the exchange of and wearing of rings to symbolize being married came into being. But, to our friends, their rings simply represent a public acknowledgement of the committment they have made to each other. The making of a ring, involving all four of the Elements, also comes to symbolize the intricacy of Life---how everything links to everything else, and even the simplest of things can represent aspects of the divine.

These particular rings carry that intricacy in the knotwork upon their surface. A weaving of the bands reflecting how many strands of life work together as one.

Similarly, this couple, by coming before family and friends and joining together in marriage, do seek to form one life out of many strands---yet still keeping the uniqueness of each thread involved.

My friends, in your hands you hold a circle of the Elements...born of Earth, forged in Fire, cooled by Water, and aged by Air and Spirit as it has been worn and cherished. Do you agree to wear these in good faith as a symbol of your love and marriage?

Bride and Groom: We do.

[they turn and look into each other's eyes]

Groom: I give you this ring as token and pledge to honor my committment to you, now and always.

[he places the bride's ring on her finger]

Bride: I give you this ring as token and pledge to honor my committment to you, now and always.

[she places the groom's ring on his finger]

During the opening invocation, we lit candles to call upon the Element of Fire. Now that our friends are bound in love and committment as well as being distinct individuals, we ask that they come forward and bring the light and flame of their seperate candles to bear on this unity candle.

[the couple take their candles and light the central candle]

Likewise, we did douse this couple lightly from the Element of Water, lightly, but seperately. We now ask that they take up this cup and drink from it deeply...even as they drink deeply of their love for one another.

[the couple drink from the cup in turn]

Earth is many things...it is stone and metal and gemstone...tree and bush and flower...and grain. From this grain we have bread...sustaining staple that is but one of the things needed for life. My friends, we ask that you take of this bread, feeling in its warmth a reflection of your love and , by feeding it to one another, partaking of life as one...supportive and providing...as needs dictate.

[the couple break bread]

Finally, Air...an elusive Element, to be sure, but one that is needed more surely than almost any of the others. At its simplest form, this element is the breath of Life. My friends, we ask that you come together physically as you have done so spiritually and share this breath among yourselves.

[they kiss]

Pronouncement of Marriage:

Presentation of Couple:

Today, before this gathering of family and friends, this couple has shown their intent to marry and proclaimed publicly their love and committment for one another. They have exchanged rings and partaken of other symbols of this. It is my pleasure to present them to you, not merely as individuals, but as a loving couple.

[bride and groom exteunt]

For our friends, Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!

Invitation to Reception/Schedule of Day:

[after applause dies down]

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Attend, good Lords and Ladies! Your presence is most happily requested at a reception to be held, forthwith, in the ______ behind you. If any wish to, there is also a full plan of activities ongoing all day, to be capped off with a wedding feast and ball tonight. For further information, please see _______ .