Sara and Jason: The Ceremony

Good evening, and welcome.

We gather here today to celebrate the wedding of Sara Smilko and Jason Miller.  All of us who are here today are here because we love Sara and Jason, and because we love them together.  We are delighted to celebrate their union, a union that has been strong and steady for many years.

Jason, Sara – it has been eight years since Nate brought you together by sitting on Sara’s blanket and refusing to move.  Eight years of love and friendship, of joy and loss, of growth and change. You have made a life together, and this ceremony is a celebration of what has been and what will be.

You may wonder whether your life as husband and wife will be any different from your life as partners.  It is my belief, my hope, that it will be.  I believe that even after eight committed, love-filled years, something is changing here today.

Today you enter into marriage.  Marriage is, of course, a commitment between wife and husband, yet your marriage unites more than you two.  You have brought your families and your friends together, and today many of us will recall our own weddings and our own vows, and hear resonances of our own hopes and loves.  As you join your lives in marriage, you also join all of the husbands and wives before you.  Marriage is something from the ages.

Today you hear the songs and words of those who love you, yet much of what we say will be a blur.  You are focused so completely on each other, just as you should be.  I am confident, though, that you will carry this celebration of your love with you, and that the rings you exchange today will be a constant reminder of it.  Those rings are never-ending and precious, just like your love for one another.  It’s as if they embody everything you have put into this ceremony, as if they create a kind of force field around you. 

Let them be a reservoir of strength in your relationship, and let us fill that reservoir now.

At this point, Sara and Jason talked about the loved ones who could not be with them today, and lit a candle in their honor.

Friends and family then shared readings from John Ashbery, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Kahlil Gibran.

Friends, today we surround Sara and Jason with our prayers and words and wishes.  We will listen as they share their vows, exchange their rings, and marry themselves.  This listening truly is an act of love.  Jason, Sara – we will hear your vows and see the rings you exchange as a sign of those vows.  We will witness your marriage and pledge to uphold and care for you.

The rest is up to you.

Sara and Jason shared their vows, exchanged their rings, and married themselves!