UNITY CANDLE CEREMONY #1

 MINISTER: This candle you are about to light is a candle of Marriage. Its fire is magical because it represents the light of two people in love.

This candle before you is a candle of commitment because it takes two people working together to keep it aflame

This candle is also a candle of Unity because both come together, giving a spark of themselves, to create the new light.

As you light this candle today, may the brightness of the flame shine throughout your lives. May it give you courage and reassurance in darkness, warmth and safety in the cold, Strength and joy in your bodies, minds, and spirits.

May your union be forever blessed!!

UNITY CANDLE CEREMONY #2

Minister: Long before you found each other in this lifetime, your souls burned brightly as one in the heavens. In this lifetime, you have both grown in to bright beacons of light that have gained strength and wisdom through your many travels and experiences. Nevertheless, as it was written in the stars, these beacons called out to each other in the darkness. Moreover, as destiny designed their response we love.

Together you stand before us prepared to reunite your soul’s incandescence by rejoining your individual beacons of light back to their original glorious flame; a flame of such magnitude that not even death with extinguish it.

We celebrate with you, and in so celebrating, we light this candle in memory of all those who have gone before us or are unable to be with us today in recognition of the power that is love.

Minister: And now, let us participate in another symbolic act. Life is full of may such actions that speak to us of a deeper meaning that we cannot always put into words. You have used ancient symbols in this wedding service-the exchange of rings, the clasping of hands, the bearing of flowers. By such things you act instead of speak in regards to your promises. Now each of you will take a candle. Together you will light one larger candle. This is a vivid reminder that in Christian marriage, that our lives are merged, even as we remain individuals. This is a symbolic prayer that god will enhance our own persona and bless your uniqueness as individual: but that god will also make of your hands ONE hand.. Of your hearts ONE heart… and our lives ONE life.

Minister: Groom and Bride, the two lighted candles symbolize your separate lives, your separate families and your separate set of friends. I ask that you each take one candle and that together you light the center candle. The individual candies represent your individual lives before today. Lighting the center candle represents the joining together and our two families and sets of friends to one.

POEM #1

"When I look into your eyes,

I see more than just your beauty.

I can see that you love me

As much as I love you.

When I put my arms around you,

I never want to let you go.

When I kiss your lips,

My heart begins to melt."

POEM #2

I carry your heart with me, I carry it n my heart! I am never without it, anywhere I go you go, my dear: and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling. I fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet.

I want no world, for beautiful you are my world, my true, and its you that is what a moon has always meant and what a sun will always sing is you.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows, you are the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life! Which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide, and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.

I carry your heart; I carry it in my heart

POEM #3

I would like to read to you a poem about this mingling, called “Married Love”. Which was written by a medieval poet about seven hundred years ago? In the English translation, it reads;

You and I

Have so much love,

That is burns like a fire,

In which we bake a lump of clay

Molded into a figure of you

And a figure of me.

Then we take both of them.

And break them into pieces,

And mix the pieces with water,

And mold again a figure of you and a figure of me.

I am in your clay.

You are in my clay.

In life we share a single quilt,

In death we will share one coffin.

As the poem shows us, mingling in marriage is a mutual dedication, a cooperative venture in every sense. I t is a relationship based on love, respect, and a determination by both partners to adjust to each other and support one another, in health and in sickness, in joy and in sadness, in case and in hardship.