Wedding Readings: A Threshold of Life - This my husband. This is my wife

 I love this reading: It is a beautiful way to set up the vows and prepare the couple for crossing a sacred threshold into the state of matrimony.

 Union by Robert Fulghum      

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.  The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another,

“You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.” 

 Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion.  Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.  For after today you shall say to the world –

This is my husband. This is my wife.

  Please turn and take each other’s hands and share the vows of marriage.

 The Vows:

______, the woman who stands by your side is about to become your wife. She will look to you for gentleness, for support, for understanding, for encouragement, and for protection. You must never take ____ for granted, but be continually sensitive to her needs. Your life and love will be her greatest source of joy.

 

 So therefore I ask you ______do you choose_______to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold, to share your life with her? Do you promise to love, honor and care for her with tenderness and affection, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for all the days of your life.   “I do."

  “I do, too"

As Summer Sun gives way to September- South Cape Beach to Chequessett

As the sunsplashed days of summer gives way to September I have had the pleasure to work at some beautiful venues. Captain Linnell House in Orleans is the perfect secret garden setting for the poem Country of Marriage by Wendell Berry. The boathouse beach at Chequessett offers a seascape and rustic nautical atmosphere for Gift from the Sea by Ann Morrow Lindberg.

I have also discovered some lovely small places like The Meadow on the Cove in Orleans overlooking the Orleans Yacht Club where of theme of  marriage as a safe harbor emerges. At that wedding we did a fisherman's knot tying ritual as part of a wedding ceremony.  I wrote an original poem for the couple bringing in this nautical theme of making fast the ties that bind. My husband, David, who was in the Coast Guard, gave me some great wording about how the ropes must be of equal strength to make the knot hold under pressure. 

As the pictures come in from the wonderful photographers with whom I have worked such as, Julia Cumes I will post pictures. Also, I want to give a shout out to DJ Scott Rosenthal of Cape Tunes with whom I worked at Popponnessett Inn another wonderful venue just last Friday. I loved the Love Shack recessional !

 Below is a picture of Abigail and Cliff at Chequessett from last September -Happy Anniversary! 

H