Simple Wedding Vows

 

Bride & Groom, Today you celebrate one of life's greatest moments and give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, as you join together in vows of marriage.

 

To make your marriage work it will take love. Love should be the core of your marriage; love is the reason you are here. But it also will take trust - to know in your hearts you want the best for each other.

 

It will take dedication - to stay open to one another, to learn and to grow together even when this is not always so easy to do. It will take faith - to always be willing to go forward to tomorrow, never really knowing what tomorrow will bring. And it will take commitment - to hold true to the journey you both now pledge to share together.

 

Now, would you both please turn and face each other and hold hands.

 

Groom, Do you take Bride to be your Wife? ("I do") Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, forsaking all others and holding only unto her? ("I do")

 

Bride, Do you take Groom to be your Husband? ("I do") Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him?  ("I do")

 

May I please have your rings? 

 

The wedding ring is a seal of the vows Bride & Groom have made to one another, to be living together in unity, love and happiness for the rest of their lives.

 

Groom please place Bride's ring on her left ring finger and repeat after me.

 

I, Groom take thee, Bride to be my Wife. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you. With this ring, I thee wed.

 

Bride please place Groom‘s ring on his left ring finger and repeat after me.

 

I Bride take thee Groom to be my husband. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you. With this ring, I thee wed.

 

Here are some words regarding marriage…..

 

Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together.  Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. 

 

I would like to share with you a ceremonial wedding prayer given to us by our native Washoan Indians, the original inhabitants of this beautiful land and lake we know as Tahoe:

           

“Now you feel no rain…for each of you will be shelter to the other.  Now you will feel no cold…for each of you will be warmth to the other.  Now there is no more loneliness for you.  You are still two bodies but there is only one life before you.  Go now and enter into your days of togetherness, and may your days be good and long upon this earth.”

 

Bride & Groom, In so much as the two of you have agreed to live together in Matrimony, have promised your love for each other by these vows, And now having heard you make these pledges of your affection, I do by virtue of the authority vested in me and the State of California/Nevada, I now declare you to be Husband and Wife.

 

Congratulations! _________, You may now kiss your bride.