The Five Most Important Words in a Wedding

As a part of my wedding ministry, I offer couples a marriage counseling program which can help their marriage down the road and can save them money on the cost of their license. This program includes lots of helpful exercises that couples can use to learn more about each other and to arm themselves with tools they will need to have a successful relationship for years to come.

As the wedding process unfolds I like to share my own marriage advice and counsel with my couples in subtle ways, telling stories and sharing my personal experiences as we prepare for the wedding. One of the most popular readings for weddings begins with the words, “Love is patient; love is kind.” I always tend to look directly into the groom’s eyes while saying this line much in the spirit of Thelma’s words to the cop as she forces him into the trunk of a car at gunpoint in the popular movie Thelma and Louise:

State Trooper: [Sobbing] Please! I have a wife and kids.

Thelma: Oh, really, well, you’re lucky. You be sweet to them, especially your wife. My husband wasn’t sweet to me. Look how I turned out.

Of course, wives should be sweet to their husbands as well. Being kind is a two-way street that should be heavily traveled by both partners.

There are many important five-word phrases in a traditional wedding like, “’Till death do us part,” “For better or for worse,” and, “You may kiss the bride.” Out of all of them there is one that has the best advice for couples because it reminds them to be sweet to each other and that is the phrase, “To love and to cherish.”

The “love” part is easy and probably already deeply entrenched because a wedding is happening. The “cherish” part is not so easily achieved and is the basis of what people refer to as “work” in a marriage.

Human nature makes us want what we cannot have and take for granted what we do have. As the years grind away couples may forget the heady days of romantic love that brought them together. Novelty turns into routine, freshness turns into blandness, and the feeling of being grateful for having found one’s soul-mate is lost in the day to day drudgery that life can become.

Learning to cherish our partner is difficult because to do so we must face the possibility (dare I say inevitability) that we will one day lose that person to the unceasing wheels of life.

A couple whom I had married some years earlier recently came to me for help, citing huge difficulties in their marriage. I gave each of them a questionnaire to complete which included the question, “How would you feel if your partner were to die tomorrow?”

Each of them admitted that he or she would be devastated to lose their significant other, which is exactly what I wanted to hear and told me that they really want to be together for the long haul. It is easy for us to lose sight of the fact that every time we say goodbye to our wife or husband we might be saying goodbye for the last time. Life is fleeting but often we don’t see that until it is too late.

The key to a happy marriage goes beyond simply not going to bed angry. It is going to bed grateful for that person beside you. It is waking up grateful for that person beside you. It is living your life with the hope that your wife or husband will be there safe and sound when you get home from work and that you can have a nice meal together, go for a long walk together, and share the events the day with one another.

When we are eternally grateful for something we treat it with love and respect naturally and easily. We care for it, tend to it, and nurture it even at the cost of our own selfish desires and wants. Learning to cherish someone is to grow up into the adult we should all be, cultivating selflessness that the Buddhists would envy and that the rest of the world would find almost other-worldly. To cherish someone is to put aside childish needs and to be ready to put one’s life on the line for them at any time.

To love and to cherish someone is the goal of a married life and is the secret to a long-term happiness that yields silver and gold wedding anniversaries ripe with children and grandchildren and memories of a life well lived.

-Rev. Sam

www.revsam.com