The Sand Ceremony

Today as we are gathered here in this beautiful setting, ___________and _______ will join their lives and their families together. Her family will become his and his family will become hers. Like a garden well tended, their marriage will grow more lovely with each passing year. It will become their refuge in uncertain times and a place of celebration for the significant moments of their lives. Their marriage will be strengthened by the triumphs and challenges they will face, just as flowers are nourished by the sunshine and the rain.

_______________ and ______________, today you join your separate lives together. The two separate bottles of sand symbolize your separate lives, separate families and separate sets of friends. They represent your lives before today. They represent all that you are and all that you will ever be as an individual.

As these two containers of sand are poured into the third container, the individual containers of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so shall your marriage be forever more.