Woman:
I do.

Officiate:
Marriage is considered by this community to be a joining of your life energies. Thus, henceforth all that you each come to own will belong to you jointly. If you someday, for any reason, choose to divorce, your marital estate will be divided equitably between you. Do you each consent to this legal merging of your resources? ¹

Man:
I do.

Woman:
I do.

Officiate:
This community recognizes the right of every individual to enter into a marital partnership of his/her own choosing. This community also recognizes an individual's right to terminate a marital partnership in the event that he/she concludes the marriage has reached a state of incompatibility, and is no longer capable of meeting his/her needs. As a representative of this community, I need to ask each of you to pledge, as you enter this marriage, that if you ever decide to sever this union you will do so with due respect for one another. I need to also ask you to promise that if you divorce you will participate in a termination process so that both of you are able to come to an understanding of why the relationship is no longer workable.

Officiate:
______, do you hereby publicly declare that if you ever decide to sever this bond of marriage that you will treat ______ with honesty and respect during that process?

Man:
I dream that this love of ours will last till we are parted by death. Yet I know I must talk of the future as a hope, an aspiration I move towards. I must acknowledge that the future is a mystery; the pages of which will unfold slowly, day to day, year to year. However, you can have faith that if I ever choose to terminate this marital partnership, I will do so with the same loving concern for you as a person that I have as I enter this marriage. With all of you as witnesses, I pledge that, if I ever find it necessary to terminate this marital relationship, I will treat ______ with fairness, honesty and due respect through the process of separation.

Officiate:
______, do you hereby publicly declare that if you ever decide to sever this bond of marriage that you will treat ______ with honesty and respect during that process?

Woman:
______, I promise that if I ever leave you, it will only be because we have exhausted all hope and possibility of healing the rifts between us. If I ever sever this bond of marriage, you can trust even that parting will be an act of love. I will only leave you if I come to know in my heart that we have traveled as far as we were meant to travel together, and that to hold on would be to smother the deeper calling of our souls. If we ever decide we must divorce, I promise to do all in my power to make that transition as painless as possible. Officiate: Will the witnesses please step forward?

Officiate:
Are you willing to endorse the sincerity and positive intention of ______ and ______ towards one another in entering into this marital union?

Witness #1:
I am.

Officiate:
Would you like to say a few words on behalf of ______ and ______? ²

Witness #1:
[This person can read a poem, sing a song, talk about his/her experiences with the couple, offer wellwishes/ blessings, etc.]

Officiate:
Are you willing to endorse the sincerity and positive intention of ______ and ______ towards one another in entering into this marital union?

Witness #2:
I am.

Officiate:
Would you like to speak on behalf of this union?

Witness #2:
[Again, this is an opportunity for a friend or family member to participate in the ceremony by adding his/her perspective about the couple's relationship.]

Officiate:
It is apparent from the words of those who know and love you, that you have a very deep love and passion for one another. It also sounds as though you have put a lot of thought into this decision to marry, and enter this union with maturity and integrity. I hear that your relationship has a strong foundation of trust, openness, and respect for one another as unique individuals. Will you both please step forward to take your marriage vows?

Man:
______, I hereby take thee as my partner. Please accept this ring as a symbol of my love. I ask you to wear it in honor and remembrance of the vows and commitments we have exchanged here today. ³

Woman:
______, I hereby take thee as my partner. Please accept this ring as a symbol of my love. I ask you to wear it in honor and remembrance of the vows and commitments we have exchanged here today.

Officiate:
By the power invested in me by this community I now pronounce you partners in marriage.

¹ If you disagree with the idea of totally communalizing your resources in marriage, it is very important that you state that clearly in your pre-nuptial agreement. I think it is also good psychologically to announce that as part of your ceremony. For example:

Officiate:
______ and _____ wish to create a marriage with more independent financial arrangements than traditionally practiced in our culture. They would like to make a public statement to that effect, with you, their family and friends, as witnesses.

Man:
We, as two very independently oriented people, wish to have our marriage legally recognized by the State, however, we do not wish to totally communalize our resources. We have drafted a pre-nuptial delineating the ways in which we desire to retain independent ownership of our personal resources in our marriage.

Woman:
We wish to announce to you, our family and friends, that we intend to honor this contract between ourselves in lieu of having the State separate our marital estate for us in the event of divorce.

²Since often the officiate of a marriage does not know the couple as well as personal friends of the couple, I have designed these ceremonies such that the friends are the ones who do most of the talking about the couple. It doesn't make much sense for a couple to spend hours familiarizing the officiate with their relationship, just so he/she can recant this to the guests. As I discussed earlier, I believe an officiate should serve as a certified public witness, not as some kind of an "expert" who approves the marriage.

³ If a couple does not want to exchange rings (many people never end up wearing them) another way of "sealing" the wedding vows is to have the partners sign a printed copy of their wedding vows in the presence of the wedding guests. A couple I know had an artist create a beautiful, hand lettered copy of their vows which they signed at their wedding ceremony and later framed.