The Ceremony

Wedding of Michelle and Matt

Saturday, 16th of June 2007

in Laguna Beach, CA

Introduction

Celebrant : Welcome, everyone! Thank you all for being here. Matt and Michelle are very excited you are with them on their wedding day! We are all together in this special place to celebrate the love and relationship of these two very special people.

Matt and Michelle, all these people care very deeply about you. They not only offer you love and friendship, but they are there to encourage and support the love that has grown between you. In our presence, you will declare your love to each other. You will make promises to begin this new journey together. This is the start of your new life, from where you will begin to share your home, your future, and your dreams, with each other.

Couple's Story

Celebrant: Believe it or not, if it wasn't for the internet, Matt and Michelle may have never met. Matt says he just had to try and connect with a girl as beautiful as Michelle, and Michelle remembers how intrigued she was by what she read on Matt's online profile. These two actually only wrote emails to each other in the beginning. Michelle says she "just loved the way he wrote: so open, so clear - it seemed to (her) that (she) could read him by the way he used the words".

About a month later, on December 27th, Michelle and Matt spoke on the phone together for the first time. They went out on their first date on January 3rd. It took Michelle two and a half hours to get ready because she says she was so anxious. They went to an Italian restaurant, where they were the only two people. And they talked and talked.

Matt says he thinks he fell in love with Michelle just a few weeks later. He can't point to an exact moment, but he knew how right it felt to be with her. He says he had never met anyone with such a unique nature. He loves how Michelle looks at the world differently, and he loves her detailed perception of things. He is also struck by how Michelle really cares about this world and the people in it.

On their third date, it was too cold to play chess on the beach, so they went to a wine bar instead, and that's where Matt told her he wanted to see her exclusively. Michelle says it is a little hard to define when exactly she fell in love with Matt, but she remembers how every single moment of that day is so bright in her memory and makes her so happy that she thinks it was right then.

Vows

Celebrant: Now, please hold hands and look into each other's eyes.

Matt, Michelle loves how you are so trustworthy, so honest and so talented. She loves your sarcasm and your sense of humor, and how you make her feel like being a better person each day. She says how she loves everything about you, including your flaws. And now Michelle will express her love to you in her own words.

Michelle:

Matt,

Today we are starting a new journey together. Wherever it will take us, I want to help you to make it long and beautiful, full of love, understanding, honesty and respect.

I love you deeply and I want to share with you what I am and the life that lies ahead of me.

You are my four seasons and I hope I can bring to your life the light you brought to mine.

You are my summer, brightening my days with your warm hugs, blue eyes, love, laughs, your jokes. You are happiness.

You are my spring, helping me to blossom and grow into a better person everyday; you are the love that nurtures.

You are my fall, teaching me to mature, to let go, to forgive. You teach me to adapt and change, keeping my true colors strong with your strength. You are forgiveness and generosity.

You are my winter, being hard on my lack of focus, blowing cold on my face to teach me courage, strenght and perseverance to reach for my dreams. You are discipline, courage and truth.

With my heart, I promise you I will do my best to be for you the love, understanding and respect that you are for me.

And with my honor, I promise you my loyalty and honesty, always.

I love you more than anything and I wish to be your wife, for as long as we are on this earth.

Celebrant: Michelle, Matt loves that everything you do and say is performed with love and care. He loves the deep discussions you have with one another, and wants to travel and experience new things with you. He says he loves laughing when you curse in English and when both your words are lost in translation. He laughs, when you laugh. And now Matt will express his love to you in his own words.

Matt: (Matt created his vows at the moment of the ceremony, saying that he wanted to be Michelle's husband and that he loved her more than anything. He also said more beautiful things about his feelings toward her and how he also grows with her).

Ring vows

Celebrant: Throughout history, a wedding ring has served different functions. Rings are exchanged as gifts, and symbolize pledges of faithfulness and trust. The circle on the finger represents unity, and marks eternity, with no beginning and no end. Matt and Michelle will now place a ring on each other's finger as a reminder of the promises they have made to each other today.

Matt: Michelle, I give you this ring. It is a symbol of my unending love, loyalty and respect.

Michelle: Matt, I give you this ring. It is a symbol of my unending love, loyalty and respect.

Conclusion

Celebrant: Michelle and Matt, to end this ceremony, listen closely to this Native American blessing from the Apache tribe.

" Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.

Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth for the other.

Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.

May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years.

May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the Earth."

" Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.

When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship, as they threaten all relationships at one time or another,

remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong.

In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there.

And if each of you take responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight."

It is a tremendous honor, as a Celebrant and officiant of the State of California, to announce, for the very first time as husband and wife: ladies and gentlemen,

Mrs. and Mr. Michelle and Matthew Mocarski!

Please, kiss!