Love brought (bride) and (groom) to this moment in their life.  Love that started with dating, then engagement and now to this beautiful day with all of you gathered here.  Love is an emotion.  It has its ebbs and flows and that is why what you are doing today is so important.  You are announcing to the world that you now choose to commit your lives to one another.  Commitment is so important.  It takes a made up mind to have a healthy, long lasting marriage.  There will be times in your marriage that challenge your resolve.  Issues will doubtless arise where the commitment your making today will be tested.  Those are the times where you smile at your spouse, tell them you love them and then maybe take a little walk. : )  I know I’ve been there where as I walk away I say to myself, NOT OUTLOUD   : )   but to myself “commitment”, “I am committed to that woman!”.  Tantamount with commitment is compromise.  Now I’m sure the two of you have never had an argument or disagreement right?  ; )  There will come a time in your marriage where you are each 100% sure that YOU are correct.  It’s ok to just smile, say I love you and maybe take a little walk while saying to yourself “compromise”!  With the love that has brought you to this moment, your made up minds to stick it out no matter what and your willingness to compromise and champion each other’s causes there is no doubt you WILL be successful!

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, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. 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.”

Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage…

I said “as you wish” from the beginning… I loved you from the start.

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I…

I love you,
not only for what you are—
but for what I am
when I am with you.

I love you,
not only for what
you have made of yourself—
but for what
you are making of me.

I love you for
the part of me that you bring out;
I love you for putting your hand
into my heaped-up heart
and passing over
all the foolish, weak things
that you can’t help
dimly seeing there,
and for drawing out into the light
all the beautiful belongings
that no one else had looked
quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
are helping me to make
of the lumber of my life
not a tavern, but a temple.

Out of the works of my every day
not a reproach, but a song.

I love you
because you have done
more than any creed
could have done
to make me good.

And more than any fate
could have done
to make me happy.

You have done it
without a touch,
without a word,
without a sign.
You have done it
by being yourself.