These readings focus on what marriage truly is—the commitment, the partnership, and the life you build together over time. They tend to be thoughtful, grounded, and rooted in the reality of love beyond the wedding day. If you’re drawn to something that speaks to the meaning of marriage itself, you’ll likely find it here.
A Marriage – Mark Twain
A marriage makes of two fractional lives a whole;
It gives two purposeless lives a work,
And doubles the strength of each to perform it.
It gives to two questioning natures a reason for living
And something to live for.
It will give new gladness to the sunshine,
A new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth
And a new mystery to life.
Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle of Its Love– Edmund O’Neill
Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime. Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships.
A wife and a husband are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent or child.
Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly.
Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life.
When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves which binds them closer than any spoken or written words.
Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.
Art of Marriage – Wilferd A. Peterson
The little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry. It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives. It is standing together facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family. It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel. It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner; it is being the right partner.
True Friendship – Judy Bielicki
It is often said that it is love that makes the world go round. However, without doubt,
it is friendship which keeps our spinning existence on an even keel.
True friendship provides so many of the essentials for a happy life — it is the
foundation on which to build an enduring relationship, it is the mortar which bonds us
together in harmony, and it is the calm, warm protection we sometimes need when
the world outside seems cold and chaotic.
True friendship holds a mirror to our foibles and failings, without destroying our sense
of worthiness. True friendship nurtures our hopes, supports us in our
disappointments, and encourages us to grow to our best potential.
________ and ________ came together as friends. Today, they pledge to
each other not only their love, but also the strength, warmth and, most importantly,
the fun of true friendship.
Vows/Epithalamion – Toy Kushner
Conjunction, assemblage, congress, union:
Life isn’t meant to be lived alone.
A life apart is a desperate fiction.
Life is an intermediate business:
a field of light bordered by love
a sea of desire stretched between shores.
Marriage is the strength of union.
Marriage is the harmonic blend.
Marriage is the elegant dialectic of counterpoint.
Marriage is the faultless, fragile logic of ecology:
A reasonable process of give and take
unfolding through cyclical and linear time.
A wedding is the conjoining of systems in which
Neither loses its single splendor and both are completely
transformed. As, for example,
The dawn is the wedding of the Night and the Day,
and is neither, and both,
and is, in itself, the most beautiful time,
abundant artless beauty,
free and careless magnificence.