The Rose Ceremony

After the exchange of rings, Helen said the following:
Your gift to each other for your wedding today has been your wedding rings. They shall always be an outward demonstration of your vows of love and respect, and a public showing of your commitment to each other. You now share that most honorable title: “spouse”. You have chosen your first gift, as spouses, to be a single rose.
From time immemorial, the rose has been considered a symbol of love, and a single rose has always meant only one thing - “I love you”. So it is appropriate that your first gift as spouses is a single rose.


Please exchange your first gift as a married couple.




In some ways it seems like you have not done anything at all. Just a moment ago you were both holding one small rose, and now you are both holding one small rose. In some ways, a marriage ceremony is like this. In some ways, tomorrow is going to seem no different than yesterday. But in fact today, just now, you both have given and received one of the most valuable and precious gifts of life - one I hope you always remember - the gift of true and abiding love within the devotion of marriage.
Scott and Ian, where ever you make your home in the future, I would ask that you both pick one very special location for roses; so that on each anniversary of this truly wonderful occasion you may each take a rose to that spot; both as a recommitment to your marriage, and a recommitment that THIS will be a marriage based upon love.
In every marriage there are times where it is difficult to find the right words. It is easiest to hurt those we most love. It is easiest to be most hurt by those we love the most. Sometimes it might be difficult to say the words “I am sorry” or “I forgive you”; “I need you” or “I am hurting”. If this should happen, if you simply can not find these words, leave a rose at that spot which both of you have selected - for that rose will then say what matters most: that your love overpowers all other things and all other words. The rose says: “I still love you”.
The other should accept this rose for the words which cannot be found, and remember the love and hope that you both share today.
Ian and Scott, if you remember only one thing about this marriage ceremony, let it be that it was love that brought you here today, it is only love that can make a glorious union, and it is by love that your marriage shall endure.

And now, you may kiss for the first time as a married couple.


Ladies and gentlemen, by the power vested in me by the nation of The Netherlands, it is my honor to present to you for the first time as a married couple, Ian and Scott Curry-Sumner.