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Our Nebraska Wedding: Ceremony Part 2

After we exchanged our vows…it was time to ‘put a ring on it’.

Our pastor started by saying:

Let these rings be a sign that love has a past, a present, and a future
Through you and within you.

Then Lance recited these simple yet beautiful words while slipping the ring onto my finger.

Stephanie I give you this ring as a sign of my wedded love and faithfulness.
Wear it, think of me, and know that I love you.

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He struggled a bit…I was quick to help obviously :)

Then it was my turn.

Lance I give you this ring as a sign of my wedded love and faithfulness.
Wear it, think of me, and know that I love you.

We followed our exchange of rings with a hand ceremony.  Definitely one of my favorite parts of the entire thing.  I pieced together parts from different hand ceremonies I found online and via other blogs.  From the moment I came across the idea I knew I wanted to include it in our day, and I am so so glad we did!

Stephanie, now take Lance’s hands palms up, so that you may see the gift that they are to you: These are the hands of your best friend, young, strong, and vibrant with love, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as he promises to love you all the days of his life.

Now Lance, take Stephanie’s hands palms up, so that you may see the gift that they are to you:

These are the hands of your best friend, smooth, young and carefree, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as she promises to love you all the days of her life.

Now Lance and Stephanie, join your hands together
These are the hands that will work alongside yours, as you build your future together.
These are the hands that will hold you whenever illness, fear, or grief may find you.
These are the hands that will give you strength whenever you may need it.
These are the hands that will tenderly hold your children
These are the hands that even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours.

Bless these hands that you see before you this day.
May they always reach out with love, gentleness, and respect.
May they build a loving relationship that lasts a lifetime.
And may they always be held by one another.

Following our hand ceremony, my cousin read our second reading from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres.

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.

The last line was the perfect segway into our Unity Tree planting!

Lance and I added soil which came from the yard of our childhood homes.  Then our Mothers added water to symbolize the nurturing and love of our family and friends to our new life together.


{this image via author’s personal collection}

As Lance and I made our way back to the front of the aisle, I grabbed my bouquet from my BM Shelley.  Then as we were standing there…it occurred to me that Lance and I had to kiss still!  How on earth was I going to do that with a giant bouquet in my hand!?  So I nonchalantly handed my bouquet back to her.  Our pastor of course had to poke fun at me, which led to some laughter.

So no not everything went perfectly-to-the-T during our ceremony but ya know what…I loved that I totally messed up!  The key is to just roll with the punches…and laugh…a lot!

With our tree planted and a few laughs there was only one thing left to do…be announced officially as Husband and Wife…and kiss!

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Then just like that…we were married!

Up Next…we eat, we drink, and we party our booties off!

*unless otherwise noted, all photos by Kabloom Studios