Blake Frank & Jessica McGuire
Prelude
Processional – All Rise!
Welcome:
A wedding is a celebration of love. Jessica and Blake are most grateful for your presence here today as they pledge their lifelong love to each other. Your very presence symbolizes your love for them. The love felt in this place flows from the very heart of God. The greatest love story ever told is found in these simple words in the 3rd Chapter of John's Gospel, “For God so loved the world”. The deepest love known to man is the love of God. We love because He first loved us.
Giving Away of the Bride:
May the Lord bless you both... as from this day forward you seek to carry out this scriptural ideal in your marriage.
In light of the serious approach that the Scriptures take toward marriage, it should be entered into with sobriety and reverence. If anyone gathered can show just cause why this couple should not be joined together, let them speak now or else, hereafter and forevermore, hold their peace.
Who gives this woman to be married to this man?
Bride's Parents rise and respond: We do...
Please all be seated...
Jessica and Blake, you have come to me signifying your desire to be joined together in holy matrimony. Being reassured that no grounds exist to hinder this union, may we now join together in prayer as we ask God’s blessing upon this most sacred ceremony.
Prayer
Our Heavenly Father, we come, our hearts filled with thanksgiving, for the divine provision that You have made for us in Your original insights and pronouncement that it is not good for man to be alone. Rather, You have made us to find our highest fulfillment together in You.
We thank You for the heritage represented here as Blake Allan Frank and Jessica Marie McGuire stand together before You in this hour. We thank You for every act of care, nurture, sacrifice, provision, and love that has been shown to them by those who have loved them and nurtured them even to this hour. But now we recognize, Father, that something new is about to happen. As You have instructed, it is time for them to leave their first loyalty to other families... and cleave to each other so that from this day forward... it will be one for the other, sealed by Your blessing... Your spirit and Your love will be the manifest reality of their new life together.
We pray that these vows being exchanged, these tokens of love that are given one to the other, might ever remain sacred... and may we be reminded that beyond these visible witnesses, these words spoken here today are witnessed by heaven itself... seen by Your eyes... and heard by Your ears... and sealed by the very presence of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Father, we pray for Your blessing upon this young couple and the union that is created here today. We ask for Your blessing in the name of Jesus who is the Christ. May this new union serve to meet Your divine purpose through the lives of Blake and Jessica. Amen.
Blake and Jessica... we are gathered here today for a sacred occasion, a most joy-filled occasion, one which is sweet and special to you, to your families, and to all your friends who are gathered to share it with you. A perfect marriage is made in heaven. A perfect marriage is a union of three: Christ, a man, and a woman. Before the foundation of the world, God ordained that the two of you would be together. He has engineered and used every circumstance in your lives up to this point to prepare the two of you to become one in Him.
I must remind you that this is the only relationship on this side of heaven where the Bible says that two people become one flesh. You are entering into a covenant with Jesus Christ and with all of your brothers and sisters who are in a covenant with Him. A marriage covenant made between a man and a woman is the most sacred of all promises or pledges made between two people, however, you must remember that you are not only making vows to each other but also to and with God.
We, believers, are in a sacred covenant with Jesus our Lord and Savior... because He surrendered His all, his very life, to God on our behalf and He died our death on the cross, taking our sin, our suffering, our shame, our sorrow, our separation. Today you enter into the marriage covenant by saying you die to selfishness and to the single life. You surrender your all to the Father. You surrender your all to each other. The making of a covenant traditionally includes an exchange. When we enter into a covenant with Jesus, we exchange our lives for His life, we exchange all that we are for all that He is and all that He has.
David and Jonathon enacted a covenant. In 1st Samuel Chapter 18, they entered into a covenant to be life-long friends. They exchanged their coats. They exchanged their weapons. The exchange meant that they were exchanging their friends for each other’s friends; their enemies for each other’s enemies; their curses; their blessings. They exchanged all those things so that, whenever you spoke of one, you definitely spoke of the other.
Today you are exchanging all that you are and all that you have with each other. It is no longer “I”, “me”, and “mine”. From now on it shall be “we”, “us”, and “ours”. Blake, today, Jessica is taking this exchange so seriously that she is exchanging her name for your name. After today she will no longer be known as Jessica Marie McGuire, but instead, she will be known as Jessica Marie Frank, and that is a very serious matter for her to be willing to make that exchange. Furthermore, a covenant involves examination. We are able to examine our relationship with Christ on a daily basis. Let a man examine himself for the Bible says, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1st Corinthians 10:12)
In olden days when two people entered into a covenant, they would on occasion meet again to examine the conditions of that covenant for the purpose of making sure that both of them were remaining true to the commitment. You need to examine your covenant relationship in marriage in days to come, Blake, by considering daily whether or not you are loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. You must examine your heart to make sure that you are willing to die for Jessica and make the sacrifices necessary to promote her safety, her security, her strength, and her welfare. God has placed in her unique characteristics that He wants you to develop and bring out in her life.
Jessica, daily you must examine your own heart, your own covenant relationship, and make sure that you are submitted to your own husband as unto the Lord. Daily you will need to examine your heart to make sure that you mutually submit to the Christ who dwells deep within the two of you.
God tells us in 1st Corinthians Chapter 7 and Ephesians Chapter 5... His exact view of marriage. Blake, the bible says it is ordained that a man should leave his father and mother and should cleave unto his wife that the two of them should be one flesh, united in all hopes, aims, sentiments, and interests of this present time. So I remind you that you are not entering into a secular experience, but, into a spiritual experience because God takes this relationship so seriously that he likens it to the relationship that exists between Christ and His church, Christ being the groom, His fellowship of believers being His bride.
Jessica and Blake, I invite you to come and begin the adventure of your marriage... and the remainder of your lives together, by declaring your vows to one another in the presence of God... and in the presence of God's people.
Jessica and Blake, if you are ready to make these vows to God and to each other please join hands, and open your hearts and souls to one another and to God.
Blake, would you please repeat these words after me if they are the desire of your heart:
I, Blake, take thee, Jessica,
to be my wedded wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, and to cherish till death do us part;
and to you, I pledge my faithfulness.
Jessica, would you please repeat these words after me if they are the desire of your heart:
I, Jessica, take thee, Blake,
to be my wedded husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, and to cherish till death do us part;
and to you, I pledge my faithfulness.
Exchange of Rings
May I now please have the rings... may the Lord's blessing be forever upon these emblems of your faith and love for one another.
The giving and receiving of wedding rings is rich with spiritual lessons for marriage. They speak of acceptance, trust, purity, and love. The beauty of their material and the uniqueness of their form point to the ideal marital state. These rings also portray the exchanging of your marriage vows and shall forever serve as a public witness of these vows. At this time, you exchange these beautiful and precious rings, as symbols of your promises to each other and to God.
Blake, please take this ring to represent your bond to Jessica:
Blake, repeat after me and to Jessica:
This ring is a picture of my love for you;
I give it to you to wear in joy.
I give it in humble gratitude
that Christ led us together.
In the name of the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Jessica, please take this ring to represent your bond to Blake:
Jessica, repeat after me and to Blake:
This ring is a picture of my love for you;
I give it to you to wear in joy.
I give it in humble gratitude
that Christ led us together.
In the name of the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Scripture Reading – Aiden & Connor
Unity Sand and Signing of the Marriage Certificate
Aiden and Allana please come and join Blake and Jessica for the Unity Sand Ceremony.
Jessica and Blake, Allana and Aiden, today you are here to join all four of your lives together. These separate vases of sand symbolize each of you and your individual lives.
Today, all of you seal your bond to each other by blending these four individual vases together. Once the sand is blended together, it cannot be separated. Just as the sand cannot be separated, your friends and families are here today to witness your love... and your lives pledged and bound together. By blending these sands together, we are recognizing the importance of your bonding eternally as one family. May you always honor, preserve and protect your family. (all pour their sand into the vase)
Now I would like to ask Blake and Jessica's witnesses to join us to sign the Marriage Certificate as required by the laws of the State of Iowa. (all sign the marriage certificate and then all move back to their original spaces)
Our Father, we thank You for having instituted divine matrimony and having established the family... thus providing us with human relationships that could not otherwise be experienced. It is our prayer at this moment that Your presence and power shall rest upon this couple... to keep them in times of difficulty, to sustain them in moments of abundance as well as in the moments of poverty. I pray You shall write these vows spoken... this covenant created... Lord, write it indelibly upon their hearts that they may walk with You and with each other as their love grows in You.
Lord, we pray Your blessing and grace upon each of us gathered here today in this holy place. May we through the blessing of this ceremony grow closer to our loved ones and to You. May Your blessing be upon us eternally. In Jesus’ most holy name we pray. Amen
Pronouncement
Jessica and Blake, you have given sacred vows to each other before a holy and righteous God. These vows are therefore never to be broke nor violated.
Now by virtue of the authority invest in me by the State of Iowa and as a Minister and Advocate of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of God and these assembled witnesses, I pronounce you husband and wife.
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder”
Blake, you may now kiss your bride.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pride and considerable honor that I should be the first to introduce to you all... Mr. and Mrs. Blake Frank.
Recessional
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