A wedding ceremony script you can read word for word

Stand at the front, a half-step to the side, so the aisle photographs are theirs. Hands loose. The music will end on its own — do not begin until it actually has.

Wait for everyone to sit. One breath. Look at the back of the room.

Good afternoon, everyone. Please, take your seats. We are here for Maya and Daniel — and I promise you, they have been ready for this a while. For those I have not met: my name is Grace. Daniel is my oldest friend, which is how I come to know everything I am about to tell you. Some of you got on a plane to be in this room. Some of you drove through the night. They know exactly who you are, and they are not going to forget it.

Tell it the way you would tell it at a table. Slower than that, actually.

Maya was nine hours into a shift when Daniel came in and ordered the worst thing on the menu — on purpose, so that she would have to come back to the table and argue with him about it. He has never once denied this. I have known these two long enough to tell you this is not a surprise to anyone who has seen them in a room together. He came back the next week and ordered the same thing. She let him. And somewhere between the third argument and the thirtieth, arguing turned into planning, and planning turned into an apartment with a kitchen cupboard I will tell you about in a minute. Here is the thing I have actually watched, for years now: they are better at being themselves next to each other. Daniel laughs more. Maya rests more. Neither of them keeps score, and each of them privately believes the other one is the catch. They are both right.

Name Priya, and wait until she is standing at the front before you step back. She reads from her own copy.

Maya’s sister Priya is going to read for us now — a poem by e. e. cummings that has been taped inside their kitchen cupboard since the year they moved in.

The room has just heard a poem. Come back in gently — this is the turn toward the promises.

Maya and Daniel, you are about to make the oldest promise there is, so let me say one thing about it first. Nobody can promise a feeling. Feelings do not take instruction — anyone who has met either of you knows that. What you can promise is what you will do: to be honest, to be kind, to stay. You have been keeping that promise, unofficially, for six years. In a moment, we make it official.

Turn to each of them in turn. Ask it like a question, and wait for the whole answer.

Daniel, do you take Maya to be your wife? — I do. Maya, do you take Daniel to be your husband? — I do.

If a ring sticks, keep talking. Let them sort it out.

The rings, please. These are small, and the promise is not — which is the point. A ring goes where you will see it on every ordinary day, so that an ordinary day is where the promise lives. Maya, place the ring on Daniel’s finger and repeat after me: With this ring, / I marry you. Daniel, place the ring on Maya’s finger and repeat after me: With this ring, / I marry you.

Short lines. Pause at every slash and wait for them to catch up.

I, Maya, / take you, Daniel, / to be my husband. / I promise to be honest with you, / to be kind to you, / and to stand beside you / for as long as we both shall live. I, Daniel, / take you, Maya, / to be my wife. / I promise to be honest with you, / to be kind to you, / and to stand beside you / for as long as we both shall live.

Louder than everything before it. Head up. This is the line they came for.

Then by the power vested in me by the State of Michigan, and in front of every person in this room — it is my very great pleasure to pronounce you married.

Step back, out of the photograph, and let the room be as loud as it wants.

You may kiss.

Wait for the noise to crest and settle. Present them, and then stay put — the aisle is theirs.

Friends and family: for the first time anywhere — Maya and Daniel, married.