Wedding officiant speech examples

I have known [Partner 1] for [number] years, and in that time I have seen them get excited about exactly three things: [thing], [thing], and [Partner 2]. The first two make sense. The third took me a while to understand, until I watched them together.

Here is what I noticed. [Partner 2] does not try to change [Partner 1]. [Partner 2] pays attention. And [Partner 1], who has never once asked for directions, started asking [Partner 2] what they thought. That is what this is: two people who make each other more themselves, not less.

[Partner 1] and [Partner 2], the promises you are about to make are big. But you have been keeping the small version of them for years. Today you say them out loud.

When [Partner 2] first told me about [Partner 1], we were [where you were]. [Partner 2] said, [what they said, as close to word for word as you can]. I did not think much of it at the time. Now I think it was the most important sentence I heard that year.

Since then I have watched them do the ordinary things well. I have seen [Partner 1] [a specific act of care: drive across the state, learn to cook a dish, sit in a hospital waiting room]. I have seen [Partner 2] [a specific act of care]. None of that shows up in photographs. All of it is why we are here.

[Partner 1], you are [two honest adjectives], and you make [Partner 2] [the effect you have seen]. [Partner 2], you are [two honest adjectives], and you make [Partner 1] [the effect you have seen]. Together you have built something the rest of us can feel when we walk into your home.

Marriage is not a promise to feel this way forever. It is a promise to keep choosing each other on the days you do not. You have already shown us you know how. Now you are going to say it in front of everyone who loves you.

For those who do not know me, I am [Officiant], and I got this job because [Partner 1] lost a bet. That is not true. I got it because I have known [Partner 1] since [when], which means I have seen every haircut, and I am still here.

I want to tell you about the first time I met [Partner 2]. [Partner 1] had prepared me with a list of things not to bring up. It was a long list. I brought up all of them in the first ten minutes, and [Partner 2] laughed at every one. That was when I knew: this person is not intimidated by [Partner 1], which is rare, and this person finds [Partner 1] funny, which is essential.

Since then I have learned that [Partner 2] [a specific, affectionate quirk], and that [Partner 1] [a specific, affectionate quirk], and that somehow those two facts fit together like [a comparison the couple would laugh at].

Now, I was told to keep the jokes to under a minute, so here is the serious part. [One sentence about what you admire in them together.] [Partner 1] and [Partner 2], it is time for the promises. Please face each other.

[Partner 1] and [Partner 2] did not meet in college or at a party in their twenties. They met when they were already whole people, with histories, with [children / careers / a lot of well-earned opinions].

That means neither of them needed the other. They chose the other. I think that is the strongest kind of love there is: not two halves, but two full lives that decided to run alongside each other.

[One specific story of the two of them.]

Today they make that choice official, in front of the people who have watched it happen.

[Partner 1] and [Partner 2], everything I have said, you already know. What comes next is the part only you can say.

Please face each other and take each other's hands.