CELEBRATING YOUR CIVIL UNION - A PLANNING GUIDE FOR COUPLES

THE LEGAL PROCEDURE
The legal process is very simple. Just fill out a Civil Union application worksheet in person at a Vermont town clerk's office. It is better if both people go to the office. Pay $45 for the license. After the ceremony the officiant signs the license and returns it to the town clerk. Witnesses are not required. Then it is strongly recommended you pay the town clerk $10 for a certificated copy of your wedding certificate.

COSTS
I usually charge $225 for a ceremony. If that is a financial hardship for anyone I am willing to negotiate. I don't want money to stand in the way of love. If the ceremony is held at the church, the church requests a small donation of at least $15 to cover costs.

TO THE COUPLE
Congratulations on your decision to make a commitment to each other! What follows is a guide to help you plan a ceremony to celebrate that commitment. The guide follows some commonly used elements:

PRELUDE & PROCESSIONAL or
GATHERING TOGETHER
OPENING WORDS
READINGS
BLESSINGS (by family and/or friends)
INTERLUDE (prayer, music, or silence)
INTRODUCTION TO VOWS
VOWS
EXCHANGE OF RINGS
PRONOUNCEMENT
EMBRACE
BENEDICTION
RECESSIONAL

Optional elements are CANDLE LIGHTING CEREMONY, WINE CEREMONY, and a ROSE CEREMONY.

It would be possible to insert additional materials into this format or use these materials in a different format. The possibilities are limited only by our imaginations. Keep in mind, however, that the goal is not so much to create a unique ceremony as it is to create a ceremony that celebrates your values and your love, and works to sustain you in your commitment to each other. The more discussion and care taken in choosing the elements for our service, the more it will become yours.

HAPPY PLANNING!

PRELUDE AND PROCESSIONAL

OPENING WORDS (choose one and edit it to suit your personal style)

1. We have gathered here to share this moment with __________ and ________ and to join them in asking God's blessing on their union. As witnesses, you accept the obligation of being ready and willing to offer them any help they may need during the years that lie ahead of them. Should they call on you, it is my hope that you will respond without stint to give them that support, that nurture, that will ensure the longevity of their union.

2. We are here in the name of that love which upholds and hallows the world. We gather in this place to honor the traditions of our forbears; we remember here the companionship of countless nameless lovers in history. We are here in this place, in this hour, to declare before the assembled people the love of ________ and ________, who come to this moment in freedom and with both vision and wisdom.

3. Welcome family and friends! We come to be with _______ and _______ on this most happy occasion. They have come to make a union of their love and understanding. We have come to witness the statement of hope and commitment they make today. Welcome!

4. We are here to join _______ and _______ in civil union. We have come here at their bidding for they believe that their greatest happiness lies in their future together.

READINGS (Choose as many as you wish � 2 or 3 is customary. Often the words to your favorite song are appropriate.)

1. Listen! I will be honest with you.
I do not offer the old smooth prizes,
But I offer rough new prizes.
These are the days that must happen to you;
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid up stores,
However convenient the dwelling, You shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port, and however calm the waters,
You shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you,
You are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before you,
The long brown path before you, leading wherever you choose.
Say only to one another:
Camerada, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money.
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
(Adapted from "Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman)

2. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(From 1 Corinthians 13)

3. Martin Buber implies that people become fully human only when their being is confirmed by another person. Buber writes, " Secretly and bashfully (every person) watches for a YES which allows that person to be and which can come only from one human person to another. It is from one (person) to another that the heavenly bread of self-being is passed." thus it is in loving relationships that we can find out what the meaning of existence is about. Such a state of love does not start with a public ceremony; the union ceremony is only a public testimony, a community YES to what already exists.

4. For steadfast flame wood must be seasoned;
And if love can be trusted to last out,
Then it must first be disciplined and reasoned
To take all weathers, absences, and doubt.
No resinous pine for this, but the hard oak
Slow to catch fire, would see us through a year.
We learned to temper words before we spoke,
To force furies back, learned to forbear,
In silence to wait out erratic storm,
And bury tumult when we were apart.
The fires were banked to keep a winter warm
With heart of oak instead of resinous heart,
And in this testing year beyond desire
Began to move toward durable fire
(From Autumn Sonnets by May Sarton)

5. A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but happy and free, like a county dance of Mozart1s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern, and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; Only the barest touch in passing Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back, it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
(From "Gift of the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh)

6. Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous.
But let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other1s shadow.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
(From "The Prophet" by Kahil Gibran)

7. Not everyone we know will share the joy we feel in today's ceremony. There are those who believe that marriage is something to be reserved for heterosexuals alone. There are those in the lesbian and gay community who believe that committing one's self to a permanent relationship is to enter into a system of patriarchy and oppression. Those who oppose our being here today range from those who are well meaning and genuinely concerned for our well-being to those who are simply ludicrous and there are those also who are, perhaps, a little of both. For some people, you will be the only lesbian or gay couple they know. When they hear the word "lesbians or gays," the will think of the two of you.
T. S. Eliot in his poem "Ash Wednesday" utters the prayer: "Teach us to care and not to care." "Teach us to care" because you have a unique opportunity to spread the good news that love is not confined to narrow channels but offers more venues than many thought possible. The ways of love are like a wide ocean, with many currents flowing.
"Teach us not to care" because your primary responsibility is to each other. Yes, you must transform the world! For the world is much in need of transformation! But never at the expense of your commitment to each other! You must be there for each other first. To listen to each other and to attend to one another's needs. This is a task requiring infinite love and understanding. Happily, joy shall be our motivation! I call upon all the powers of the universe to strengthen you in your journey together.
(By Rev. John N. Marsh)

8. "You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you... love is eternal...love is of the body... When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love - Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the world was made...
From "A Room with a View" by E. M. Forester

9. "O Bride brimful of rosy little loves!
O brightest jewel of the queen of Saphos!
Come now to your bed and play there sweetly, gently
Any may Hesperus lead you not all unwilling
Until you stand wondering
Before the silver Throne of Hera
Queen of Marriage"
Sappho, translation by Mary Barnard

BLESSINGS (for family or friends)(frequently skipped)
1. Do you, who have known _________ for many years, seen him/her through times of joy and sorrow, now give your blessing to his/her union with _______?

2. This ceremony includes more than just joining two people as a couple. They who give a daughter/son become one family. So the miracle of love spreads through the earth. Who is giving _____ to be united with _________?

INVITATION TO THE VOWS

1. Minister: ________, will you have ________to be your beloved spouse, to share your life with him/her, and do you pledge that you will love, honor and tenderly care for him/her, in good times and in bad, in ease and in adversity, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, do you promise never to close your heart against him/her?
Response: I do

2. Minister: Will you _____, take ________ to be united as one in your civil union?
(Response) I Do

3. Minister: Now therefore will you, ________, join your life with this woman's/man's life, and will you honor him/her, support him/her, cherish him/her and stand with him/her all your days?
(Each answers) I will
Trials come, and tests, for there is much in this world of ours that would pull you apart. Do you bring strength and foresight to your relationships, courage and understanding?
(Respond together) We bring all that we are.
Joys will come, graces and blessings will pursue you, surprises will warm your soul and give you wonder, making your love, as scripture says, like "an amulet upon your breast." Do you bring thanksgiving and rejoicing to this relationship, laughter and abandon?
(Respond together) We bring all that we are.

VOWS (Choose one, or better yet, take what you like and then write your own.)
(Repeated after the minister)

1. I ________, pledge to you, ______,
A life of giving and hoping,
A life of growing and loving.
I shall share with you both my work and my play.
I shall be with you
In your tears and in your laughter,
Just as I will bring
My own sorrows and my own joys to you.
I accept you as my companion
And pledge to you honor, faith and love.

2. I, ________ take you _______, to be my partner in life; 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. Thereto, with my whole heart, and with my earnest and complete devotion, I promise you my love.

3. I _________, take you, ________, to be the partner of my days, to be the companion of my house. We shall keep together whatever share of trouble and sorrow our lives may lay upon us, and we shall share together our store of goodness and plenty and love.

4. I, ________, take you ________, to be my partner; and in loving you, I promise to be your faithful companion; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, from this time forward.

5. I _______ take you to be my partner in our civil union, to have and to hold from this day on, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, to love and cherish forever.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EXCHANGE OF RINGS
(Choose one if rings are being exchanged)

1. The rings are an ancient symbol, blessed and simple. Round they are, like the sun, like the eye, like the arms that embrace. Circles they are, for love that is given comes back round again. May therefore these symbols remind you that your love, like the sun, illuminates; that your love, like the eye, must see clearly; and that your love, like the arms which embrace, is a grace upon this world.

2. A circle is a symbol of the sun, and of the earth, and of the universe. It is a symbol of wholeness, of perfection, and peace. The rings you give and receive this day are symbols of the circle of shared love into which you enter as partners.

EXCHANGE OF RINGS (to be said by the couple)

1. I give this ring as a token of the loving covenant made this day between us.

2. Not as a bond but as a pledge, I give you this ring. May it encircle your finger as my love does your heart.

3. With this ring, I commit to you. Accept it as a sign of my love and fidelity.

4. This ring I give you in token and pledge of my constant faith and abiding love.

5. Accept this ring as a sign of my love and constancy for all the years ahead.

6. Take and wear this ring as a sign of my love for you.

7. With this ring, I join with you in this, our civil union.

PRONOUNCEMENT

1. _______and _______have sought and accepted each other joyously. May all that life brings to them, strengthen the bond they have declared today. May all their loved ones, those present and those unable to be present, continue to rejoice in the warmth of the love that has united them. May they be comfort and joy, counsel and strength to each other, and may the home they will build shed its peace on them and all who seek its shelter with them. Amen. Giver of life and love, we give thanks for all the beauty in the world; for its promise and its fulfillment; for all that gives gladness; for the joys of knowledge and of love and of faith. We give thanks for all that binds us to one another; for all the common experiences which make us kin; for the needs which find their highest satisfaction in loving association with others. And by the authority vested in me by the state of Vermont. I hereby join you in civil union.

2. ______ and _______ for as much as you have both committed yourselves to each other and in token have given and received rings, by the authority vested in me as a minister of the church and by the authority vested in me by the state of Vermont. I hereby join you in civil union.

3. Inasmuch as ______ and _______ have declared their love before us, and named their commitment aloud, we may all henceforth know that they are legally wed, united in the presence of the one who is love, eternal and compelling. What spirit has blessed, let not the letter destroy; and let all present and not present honor these two people with their support and encouragement. By the authority vested in me by the state of Vermont. I hereby join you in civil union. God be with you always.

4. Because you have spoken a covenant of love and trust to each other and because you have symbolized that love by the giving, receiving and wearing a band of gold, you have made for yourselves a holy union. As a minister of the Unitarian Universalist church and by the authority vested in me by the state of Vermont, I am delighted to declare that your lives are now joined as (choose one or more) wife and wife, husband and husband, spouses, partners, lovers.

EMBRACE

1. I invite you to embrace.

2. You may now kiss.

BENEDICTION (Optional)

1. May your house be a place of happiness for all who enter it, a place where the old and the young are renewed in each other1s company, a place for growing, a place for music, a place for laughter.
And when the shadows and darkness fall within its rooms, may it still be a place of hope and strength for all who enter it, especially those who are entrusted to your care.
May no person be alien to your compassion.
May your larger family be the family of all humankind, and may those who are nearest to you and dearest to you be constantly enriched by the beauty and the bounty of your love for one another.
Amen.

2. As a benediction, I would like to read those words which were adapted from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
May these two souls
Find communion of ideal being and perfect grace.
May their love reach the level of every day's most quiet need.
By sun and candle light,
May they love freely as humans strive for right.
May they love purely as humans turn from praise.
May they find strength to meet the adversities;
Tolerance for the prejudices,
Reverence for the beauties, Respect for the truths,
And Faith for the uncertainties
Which will come their way.

May all the blessings of life be yours.

3. Above you are the stars
Below you are the stones.
As time does pass
Remember...
Like a star should your love be constant.
Like a stone should your love be firm.
Be close, yet not too close.
Possess one another, yet be understanding.
Have patience each with the other
For storms will come, but they will go quickly.
Be free in giving of affection and warmth.
Make love often, and be sensuous to one another.
Have no fear, and let not the ways of words of the unenlightened give you unease.
For the spirit is with you,
Now and always.
(From the book of Pagan Rituals)

4. Go in Peace. Live simply, live gently, at home in yourselves. Be just in your words and just in your deeds. Move through the world compassionately. Speak courageously in all you say; indeed speak the truth, or speak not at all. Remember your power in the days of your powerlessness; do not desire with great desire to be wealthier that your peers, and never stint your hand from charity. Practice forbearance in all you do. Take care of all those put in your charge, young and old alike, and let not the demands of this relationship eclipse the friends who have sustained you. Crave peace for all the peoples of this world, beginning with yourselves, and go, as you go, in peace, of peace, to peace. Amen

5. With abiding confidence and affection, we send you forth upon your journey of life together; to laugh for joy, to suffer pain, to seek, to find. So be it. Amen.

6. Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now you will feel no loneliness, for each of you will be companionship to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life between you.
Go together to your dwelling place, to enter into the days of your togetherness.