OBJECTIVIST
WEDDING CEREMONY
Ceremony
created cooperatively by, Brenton Williams, Tiffany Curry and Margaret
Downey
The Virtue of Selfishness:
"One gains
a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the
person one loves".
Officiant:
Welcome to
the Objectivist Wedding Ceremony of ______ and ______.
The style
of this wedding conveys the way in which ______ and ______ view
love, life and marriage.
What exactly
is love—we all wonder?
Many great
minds have deemed love as a "matter of the heart," maintaining
that such a feeling is impervious to reason.
This idea has
been preserved in the familiar quote that "love is blind."
The essential idea that is advocated in this statement is that love
is causeless—that it is beyond reason.
To quote John
Galt in Atlas Shrugged, "When a man feels fear without reason,
you call him to the attention of a psychiatrist."
To claim that
love is blind, one is not being careful to protect the meaning,
the nature and the dignity of love.
There are,
however, those of us who know better than to let ourselves become
prey to such a philosophy.
Love—especially
romantic love—that most powerful and inclusive of all love—is the
response to our highest irreplaceable values.
John Galt also
said, "Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest
reward we can earn for the moral qualities we have achieved in our
character and person—the emotional price paid by one man for the
joy he receives from the virtues of another."
Ayn Rand tells
us, in The Romantic Manifesto, that:
"Love
is the expression of philosophy—of a subconscious philosophical
sum—and, perhaps, no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious
power of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called
upon to verify and support an emotional appraisal, when love is
a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values,
then – and only then – it is the greatest reward of man's life".
Here today,
______ and ______ have come to publicly acknowledge their highest
value. For these two people, the culmination of their minds and
life's work can only be found, celebrated and lived out in the presence
of the other.
[Officiate
gestures the bride and groom to face the Unity Candle.]
Fire has held
great importance throughout all of human history. Fire is an intense,
powerful and potentially dangerous force that only man has learned
to tame. In Objectivist thought, fire symbolizes the power of the
human mind, the creativity, the rationality, the productiveness
and the endless potential of the human being.
The strongest
illustrations of those qualities are those instances when we are
in control of fire, when we are able to manipulate it with our own
hands, when we hold it at our fingertips.
[Officiant
hands the couple one taper each and uncovers the Unity Candle]
______ and
______, these tapers represent your lives past, present and future.
[Officiant
lights each taper]
The flames
atop your tapers, symbolizes your inner glow.
With your individual
flame, I ask that you exchange vows while you light the Unity Candle
together.
[After each
person recites their vows, they light the Unity Candle. When their
vow is completed, they place their candle back on the holder next
to the Unity Candle. When both have completed, they turn to face
the officiate.]
In the Ayn
Rand book, The Fountainhead, Howard Roark reminds us that, "To
say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I'."
Your lives
so far, ______ and ______, have been lived as individuals, maturing
in mind and body in preparation for the time in which you find and
earn the love of that person without whom nothing would be the same.
For ______
and _____, that time is now. By using their individual tapers to
light the Unity Candle, ______ and ______ are conveying to all of
us—and to each other—that they are commitment to their relationship.
______ and
______ acknowledge the part that rationality and their minds will
play in this endeavor.
RING
AND CONCLUSION OPTION #1:
Do you ______,
take ______, to be your life partner and pledge to her your respect
and faithful love from this day forward?
(______ says,
"I do.")
Please place
______ ring on her finger.
Do you ______,
take ______, to be your life partner and pledge to him your respect
and faithful love from this day forward?
(______ says,
"I do.")
Please place
______ ring on his finger.
You will be
reminded each day of your commitment to this marriage with the wearing
of your wedding ring.
Words are powerful
but fleeting. The wedding ring, therefore, becomes the enduring
symbol of the promise we have just heard.
______ and
______, you have formalized in our presence the existence of the
bond of love between you - vowing to be loyal and loving toward
one another. In expressing your affirmations, you have pronounced
yourself husband and wife.
Please embrace
and kiss for the first time as husband and wife.
RING
AND CONCLUSION OPTION #2:
______, what
token do you offer ______ as a symbol of your commitment to her?
(Ring is handed
to ______.)
______:
This ring.
Do you ______
take ______ to be your wife and pledge to her your respect and faithful
love from this day forward?
(______ affirms
saying, "I do.")
Please place
______ ring on her finger.
______, what
token do you offer ______ as a symbol of your commitment to her?
(Ring is handed
to ______.)
______:
This ring.
Do you ______,
take ______ to be your husband and pledge to him your respect and
faithful love from this day forward?
(______ affirms
saying, "I do.")
Please place
______ ring on his finger.
______ and
______, you will be reminded each day of your commitment to this
marriage by the wearing of these rings. Just as the circle is without
end, your love for each other is eternal.
Just as your
rings are constant, your commitment to each other will never fail.
With the exchange of these rings and the lighting of the Unity Candle,
you have taken each other as partners for life.
As your Secular
Humanist Celebrant, I join you together, man to woman, husband to
wife, _____ to ______.
I now pronounce
______ and ______ united in marriage and life. Please embrace and
seal your commitment with a kiss of love.
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