Simple Wedding Vows

John and Jenny, today you celebrate one of life's greatest moments and give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, as you join together in vows of marriage.

Just as two very different threads woven in opposite directions can form a beautiful tapestry, so can your two lives merge together to form a very beautiful marriage. To make your marriage work will take love. Love should be the core of your marriage; love is the reason you are here. But it also will take trust - to know in your hearts that you want the best for each other.

It will take dedication - to stay open to one another, to learn and to grow together even when this is not always easy to do. It will take faith - to always be willing to go forward to tomorrow, never really knowing what tomorrow will bring. And it will take commitment - to hold true to the journey you both now pledge to share together.

Now, would you both please turn and face each other and hold hands.

John, Do you take Jenny to be your Wife? ("I do") Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, forsaking all others and holding only unto her? ("I do")

Jenny, Do you take John to be your Husband? ("I do") Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him? ("I do")

May I please have your rings?

The wedding ring is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual bond, which unites two loyal hearts in endless love. It is a seal of the vows John and Jenny have made to one another. Bless O God these rings, which these two, who give them, and who wear them, may ever abide in thy peace. Living together in unity, love and happiness for the rest of their lives. Amen.

John, please place Jenny’s ring on the third finger of her left hand and repeat after me.

I, John take thee, Jenny to be my Wife. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you. With this ring, I thee wed.

Jenny, please place John’s ring on the third finger of his left hand and repeat after me.

I, Jenny take thee John to be my husband. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you. With this ring, I thee wed.

Respect yourselves and each other. Always remember what brought you together and make gentleness, tenderness and kindness an important part of your marriage. When life's fears, frustrations and hardships attack your marriage – as they threaten all relationships at one time or another – remember to focus on the good things between you and never only on that which seems wrong. By doing this, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives – remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality for your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to each other. Now you will feel no loneliness, for you will be a companion to the other. Now you are two bodies, but there is only one life before you. Go now and enter the days of your life together.

John and Jenny, in so much as the two of you have agreed to live together in Matrimony, have promised your love for each other by these vows, and now having heard you make these pledges of your affection, I do by virtue of the authority vested in me and the State of Idaho, declare you to be Husband and Wife.

Congratulations John, you may now kiss your bride!