Blessings for a Marriage - A Wedding Doubleheader

Excerpts from Blessings For A Marriage  

by James Dillet Freeman

May you always need one another - not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you.

May you need one another, but not out of weakness. 
May you want one another, but not out of lack. 
May you entice one another, but not compel one another. 
May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another. 
May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces. 

May you look for things to praise, often say "I love you," and take no notice of small faults. 

If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.

May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.

May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.

I had the joy of attending two wedding ceremonies this weekend.

They were both so different and both so brilliantly suited for the happy couple.  It was a splendid illustration of how a wedding can be whatever you wish it to be, whatever suits you and the life you're building together, of the astonishing variety of forms love can take.

It is always a delight to me, being a part of such an occasion.  An entire day (days!) of love and family, where hugs and tears of gladness abound, where friends new and old gather, where cooperation is key and teamwork so evident, where love is so obvious and in-your-face it is hard not to get carried away in the tide of beauty and promise and hope.  My heart is overflowing with happiness.

Love.  The world can always use more open, unabashed demonstrations of love and devotion.  Of people caring for each other.  Of life and community being built right before our very eyes.   What a glory to behold!