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Secular Wedding Vows and Passages

Started by Twentythree, March 16, 2012, 03:58:52 PM

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Twentythree

I am getting married next month and we have asked a close friend to officiate the ceremony. However this friend of ours is Christian and has laced the verbiage of the ceremony with prayer and bible verse. I know that there has got to be plenty of eloquent musings about love and happiness that do not evoke the name of the father the son and the holy ghost. I am hoping that the brilliant folks here at HAF can help point me in the right direction. So if you know of or can post a link to any verse, passages or quotes it would be greatly appreciated.

Ali

Our marriage was (mostly) secular.  We let my mom read that famous passage 1 Corinthians 13 which I actually think is lovely, and hubby's mom read a passage about marriage from the Torah, and at the end hubby stepped on the glass and everyone shouted Mazel Tov.  It was our way to honor our families and heritage without making the whole thing too religious.

Our vows were spoken in front of a judge, and they were secular.  This may sound bad, but I don't actually remember all of them.  It went something very close to this though:

QuoteOfficiant: We've come to the point of your ceremony where you're going to say your vows to one another. But before you do that, I ask you to remember that love – which is rooted in faith, trust, and acceptance - will be the foundation of an abiding and deepening relationship. No other ties are more tender, no other vows more sacred than those you now assume. If you are able to keep the vows you take here today, not because of any religious or civic law, but out of a desire to love and be loved by another person fully, without limitation, then your life will have joy and the home you establish will be a place in which you both will find the direction of your growth, your freedom, and your responsibility.

Please now read the vows you have written for each other.

Bride and Groom I Serena/Casey, take you, Casey/Serena to be my husband/wife, my constant friend and partner, and my love.

I will work to create a bond of honesty, respect, and trust; one that withstands the tides of time and change, and grows along with us.

I vow to honor and respect you for all that you are and will become, taking pride in who we are, both separately and together.

I promise to challenge you, and to accept challenges from you.

I will join with you and our community in an ongoing struggle to create a world we all want to live in, where love and friendship will be recognized and celebrated in all their many forms.

Our home will be a sanctuary and a respite for us and for those whom we cherish.

Above all, I will give you my love freely and unconditionally.

I pledge this to you from the bottom of my heart, for all the days of our lives.
http://weddings.about.com/od/yourweddingceremony/a/weddingceremony.htm

ETA:  Congrats on your upcoming marriage!!!

Stevil

Congratulations

Personally I would not be happy having prayer and verse at my wedding. This day is about you and your partner, not about god.

Civil partnership readings
Secular readings post your favs


BTW:My wife and I are celebrating our 10th year anniversary next week.

DeterminedJuliet

#3
I couldn't tell from your original post, but were you looking for something from the bible? I got married in a church (believe it or not) and I remember scouring through the bible for parts that weren't too "preachy" or "Jesusy" or, you know, talked at length about women being subservient to men.

1 Corinthians 13 is a classic that is actually pretty good by secular standards:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."


I also love this little bit from Emily Dickinson and I put it on our invitations:

I sing to use the Waiting
My Bonnet but to tie
And shut the Door unto my House
No more to do have I

Till His best step approaching
We journey to the Day
And tell each other how We sung
To Keep the Dark away.
"We've thought of life by analogy with a journey, with pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end, and the THING was to get to that end; success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you're dead. But, we missed the point the whole way along; It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.

AnimatedDirt

Quote from: Stevil on March 16, 2012, 07:05:07 PM
BTW:My wife and I are celebrating our 10th year anniversary next week.

Congrats Stevil.  In this day, it is an accomplishment to be proud of.  It's 24 for me this year.  :)

Stevil

Quote from: AnimatedDirt on March 16, 2012, 08:28:56 PM
Quote from: Stevil on March 16, 2012, 07:05:07 PM
BTW:My wife and I are celebrating our 10th year anniversary next week.

Congrats Stevil.  In this day, it is an accomplishment to be proud of.  It's 24 for me this year.  :)
Wow, almost a quarter of a century. That's certainly an achievement worth aspiring for, well done AD.

I have to say though, that having young children is a test of one's relationship, we have a hard challenge these days finding time to reconnect as our kids demand all the attention. I am glad that we didn't rush into having children, I think those earlier years helped us build a solid foundation.

Sandra Craft

Congratulations. Here's a link to an atheist blog that gives examples of secular wedding vows: the Friendly Atheist blog
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

ThinkAnarchy

#7
I can't really give advice, since my wife and I simply eloped to avoid the religious and statist traditions of marriage. But my dad's 4th marriage was very secular. He simply had a JP that said they were now joined in matrimony, along with their own vows. He also had some real hippy shit with the blessing of swords... but that's beside the point.

"He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed." -Ben Franklin

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -credited to Franklin, but not sure.

fester30

I was a Christian when I got married.  However, the Bible story the preacher told and the prayer he gave aren't what I remember.  I remember how beautiful my wife looked, and how her lips moved when she said I do.  I remember the friends and family there congratulating us, and my best man, my brother, and how he looked.  My dad, his advice "your first wife was crazy... this one is amazing... if you screw this up, you're out of my will."  "But Dad, you don't have enough money for me to worry about your will."  He replied, "doesn't matter, being written out of the will is symbolic enough."  LOL

Anyway, I'm in the military.  I go to Memorial Day ceremonies and stand in formation at attention, saluting the flag.  I do so, even though there is always a Christian prayer in the name of God during the invocation.  During the prayer, I simply don't bow my head, and I don't get upset about it.  I'm not thinking about that prayer, but about all the men and women that have worn the uniform before me, and have paid the ultimate sacrifice.  Would I prefer there wasn't a prayer?  Yes.  Is that important enough to me at this point to miss the ceremony? No.

Ultimately it's about Aristotle.  Everything in moderation, nothing to excess.  What he really meant was everything according to your own tolerances.  If it takes 12 beers to get drunk, you should only have 6.  If you can handle a prayer without it ruining your day looking at the beautiful person standing there ready to spend a lifetime with you, then go for it.  If you cannot tolerate it, then don't let it be part of the ceremony.  It is your day, after all.