Sample Ceremony
Welcome and extend Aloha
Focus attention in the present, recognizing the sacredness of this union…
A moment of silence to acknowledge, remember and include all the family and friends who can’t be with us in person. Those who have passed on, those who were unable to travel, all your teachers and guides who have illumined your paths to this moment. We build a strong spiritual foundation on your gratitude. In this time to offer heartfelt thanks for the unconditional love that supports and blesses your choice, we feel their presence in the elements around us.
Optional opening Prayer…
Ceremony Text
It is love and love alone that is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for love alone takes you and joins you by what is deepest in yourselves, which is immortal as itself.
This ceremony is but an outward expression of what has unfolded and blossomed deep in your hearts. That you have freely chosen to commit your lives to the deepest truth that shines from your hearts.
Marriage will offer great opportunities for the expansion of love in mind, body and spirit. It is the couple who perseveres and demonstrates patience, faith, trust and respect for one another that elevates this union into an enduring form of deep inner happiness and bliss. Find room for the essence of Spirit and let your search for the good and beautiful in all things be a unified one.
You have planted seeds of light and hope, you have tended the gardens of your heart with reverence and care, and your lives are richly blessed with the abundance of the fruits of joyful works together.
Let this be a promise to one another, not to take for granted the sacred gift of your union, to openly cherish all you grow through and to embrace what is to come with the calm certainty that this is your heart’s path and destiny.
This marriage needs to be seen clearly, it is not like a weld between two metals that can be done once and be expected to last forever. Marriage is alive and needs to be nurtured. It is more akin to planting two trees close together, at first you need to shelter them from the elements and in time their roots take firm hold of the earth and intertwine to grow together. From above the ground there will be the appearance of two individual beings, all of your gifts, your skills and talents will serve to make the other more beautiful as well. Yet nothing will affect either of you without affecting the other, for unseen beneath the surface you are joined now as one. May you move and grow with one movement.
Let the well-worn trails fall behind, shields can be dropped, for they are useless in times of peace. True love is here and you stand in its sacred midst together. You are here to demonstrate how love has blessed your lives, to express the calm certainty and ease that you feel. That you have found rest in your love and that the way to renewal is simply by loving each other whole-heartedly. That this love is the foundation of all you hold as true and that it is the source of your brightest horizons together.
Now open your eyes to a new life together and see with your hearts…
- Optional- Lei presentation to parent and grandparents
- Optional- Hand washing ritual
- Optional Lei exchange
Wedding Vows
Do you – take – to be your lawfully wedded wife, accepting her as she is now wholly and completely, promising and pledging to support and encourage her growth physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually?
Then please repeat after me:
I am here before you: to offer my hearts deepest love and devotion. As your husband I joyfully pledge, to laugh with you in joy, to grow with you in love, to comfort and cherish you as long as we both shall live.
Ring exchange
I give you this ring as a sign of our love, that now I make the choice to share this life’s journey with you. Let these rings always remind us of the eternal joy that we share.
- Optional coconut water sharing
Closing Hawaiian Blessing
May your union be realized
As the sharing of your wholeness.
A place where your childlike spirits are renewed,
Where your faith in love is restored,
Where your link with the greatness of Spirit
Is remembered.
Let it be the haven of peace,
The safe harbor for trust,
The wellspring of joy,
The foundation of all you hold as true.
Ho’okahi naau, Ho’okahi mana o’lana,
Ho’okahi malamalama, Ho’okahi ‘oiai’o,
Ho’okahi ola, Ho’okahi ‘oli ‘oli,
E kahe pu ana, e ulu pu ana,
Mai ke kumu ho’okahi mai.
One heart, one hope,
One light, one truth,
One life, one joy,
Flowing together, growing together,
From a single source.
Fill your hearts with beauty, and beauty will come to you.
Fill your hearts with love, and love surrounds you.
Seek always the truth and it shall be yours,
For as you believe are all things manifest unto you.