My Favorite Wedding This Year

This weekend we had the incredible experience of seeing our oldest son Jeremy marry his his school sweetheart Mary. I was privileged to perform the ceremony. It was a beach wedding, which kept the wedding party small, plus the waves kept some from hearing the vows Jeremy and Mary wrote for each other. Several have asked for the text of the ceremony, so I decided to share the main part of it here for family and friends. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Here is what I said in the message portion of the ceremony:

This is a special occasion for us today…..

I’ve never performed a wedding ceremony that was this personal…

As a point of personal privilege, let me say…

Mary, thank you for being the person you are…so kind, so thoughtful, so caring for others…You are the perfect helpmate for Jeremy…We’ve said all along, you two make each other better people…We feel honored and blessed to have you as a part of our family and lives…

Jeremy, you have always been a warm-hearted person…You are highly relational…desiring to make other’s lives better than you found them…We have always said that your future will be bright not as much by what you do, but because of who you are…That’s a great great characteristic…

Jeremy and Mary, your parents are incredibly proud of the young adults you two have become…

Let me say a word to each of you gathered here…Your presence here today is helping to write a story…It’s a story about Jeremy and Mary….When Jeremy asked Mary to be his wife, he said he wanted them to write a bigger story together…Traveling this far…you have demonstrated your love for Jeremy and Mary…This wedding was kept intentionally small…So your role here today is important…it means you’re a leading character…

But it’s really a bigger story than even these two…or even all of us…You see, the story we are writing happens every time families and friends gather for a wedding ceremony…God, Himself, authored the first wedding ceremony…from the beginning with Adam and Eve

You see, marriage is part of God’s master story…It displays a picture of God’s love for us…As a man and a woman leave their mother and father, submit their lives to one another….the man loves the woman as Christ loves the church, and the wife respects her husband, the two are grafted together into one flesh…

Ephesians 5 calls this process a mystery…How two imperfect people…so incredibly different…can become one is hard to understand…God uses the picture of Christ and His love for the church as an example of that relationship…Christ died for the church…God sacrificed His Son for the church…The marriage that honors God is a picture of that kind of mutual, complete submission to one another…So many marriages today fall short of that goal. …

Mary and Jeremy, the biggest story you could ever live is to center your lives around God’s story….allow Him to direct your path…And live your life for a higher purpose…to glorify God with your life….May your marriage be the perfect example of the sacrificial love Christ demonstrated with His love for the church…

We find that love expressed in 1 Corinthians…

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. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a)

Jeremy and Mary, as your marriage begins & for the rest of your lives, may you show that the love you have for each other is indeed part of the bigger story God is writing for the world…a greater love….

Jeremy and Mary wanted to make this a very personal occasion, and they’ve decided to recite vows that they’ve personally written for each other.

Here are the vows Jeremy made to Mary:

Mary-

I remember when it seemed like this day would never come…
…. Only 7 years, only 4 more years… 1 more year, 3 months, 10 days, 1 day, and now I can finally call you my bride.

Words can’t express how thankful I am to be standing here today. When I stop and think about the qualities I desire in a wife, you exemplify every one of them. You love God and strive every day to know Him more. You have the most amazing heart, and always put others needs before your own. You are beautiful. Your smile brightens my day like nothing else in this world. You love me unconditionally even when I act selfishly or disappoint you. You’re my best friend.

In the presence of our God, our family, and our friends, I make these promises to you:

I know that my life’s greatest privilege and highest calling is to lead you and our family spiritually. I promise to run to God often and ask Him for wisdom in leading our family, so that you will always know that the direction for our family comes from the Lord. I promise to be the husband God has called me to be and to point you towards Him in everything that I say and do.

I promise to make a commitment to die daily to myself and put you, your needs and desires before my own. ….. I promise to intentionally invest in our marriage more than anything else; to dream with you through every stage of life, to celebrate with you during the good times, to laugh as often as possible, to be a listening ear whenever you want to talk, and to stand beside you through every trial we might face.

Finally Mary, I promise to never leave you, because I believe God made you for me and me for you.

From this point on, I am forever blessed to have you, my bride, my one true love, everyday, for the rest of my life. I love you now, and forever more.

Here are the vows Mary shared with Jeremy:

Jeremy-

Almost since the first day that I met you, I had a crush on you; and ever since high school, I have loved you. We have been together for seven years and we have been through so much together- good and bad, but I believe that, through God’s grace, it has only made us better people and a stronger couple. I have waited for this day and I have prayed for you for a long time. I feel so blessed that we get to stand here today and promise to spend the rest of our lives together.

Jeremy, I promise to be the woman that God has called me to be- to be the best wife that I can be. I will love you genuinely and i will not take you for granted. I will honor you and respect you. I promise to put your needs, desires, and wants before mine. I promise to pray for you everyday. Jeremy, I will build you up and not bring you down.

I promise to be there for you in the good times and the bad. I promise to be the person that you want to run to with every piece of good news and also to be the listening ear and loving arms for you to run to when nothing seems to be going right. I will stand by you no matter what. The Lord has made us a team and we are in this together. I will be there when you need me. I will not leave you. I promise that you can always confide and trust in me.

I promise to be someone you can be proud of. I promise to always dream of our future together. I promise to laugh with you, cry with you, and to live life to the fullest with you, My prayer has been that Christ would be at the center of our marriage and that He would allow us to be able to serve Him and love Him better together as a couple- that our lives would be used for something bigger than us and I promise to hold up my end of that prayer.

I am so thankful for the man that you are and that God has allowed us to begin this adventure and write our story together. I love you, Jeremy.

Just curious. Did you write your own vows? Feel free to share them with us here. Have you ever been to a beach wedding?