Unity Candle Ceremony

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=200 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="30a7ba03.jpg"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=35 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="30a7ba21egerdp.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" NH Justices of the Peace Organization "><U>NH Justices of the Peace Organization</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=165 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="30a7ba03.jpg"> <bR> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=445 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Unity Candle Ceremony</B></div> <div> <A HREF="vows.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Vows and More!"><U><B>Back to Vows & More!</B></U></A><B>                                                       <IMG SRC="36d86630.gif" border=0 width="134" height="99" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> Some couples today are choosing to use two candles to light a central candle as a symbol of two lives uniting on one path. The central candle can then be saved and lit on anniversaries, either at dinner or during a short ritual.</div> <div> The bride and the groom walk to a small table where two candles are lit, awaiting them. They take these candles and light a central candle at the same time as the minister or chaplain says, "There are two of you, yet there is only one life before you. May this life be blessed and ever richer because of everything you bring to it as individuals."</div> <div> The candle lighting usually takes place just after the vows or just before you are pronounced 'husband and wife.'</div> <div> These are the most often used selection in recent years:</div> <div> <U>Sample 1:</U>  </div> <div> The two outside candles represent your individual lives, two distinct lights, each with their separate ways. To bring harmony and happiness to your home and family there must be a merging of these two lights into one light.</div> <div> From now on your individuality will be matched by your mutuality, your sharing of all your joys and sorrows in life.</div> <div> As each of you takes a candle . . .</div> <div> and, together you light the centre candle, . . .</div> <div> then replace your own candles in their holders . . .</div> <div> you bring into being the family which, from this time onward, will be your meeting place. This one light can not be divided, neither shall your lives be divided. May the radiance of the one light be a witness to the unity you accept into your lives today. May your marriage grow stronger through all <U>the years ahead. May it ever be a source of sustenance to your individual spirits.</U></div> <bR> <div> <U>Sample 2:</U> </div> <div>  _________ and ___________, the two lighted candles symbolize your separate lives, your separate families and your separate sets of friends.  I ask that you each take one candle and that together you light the center candle.  The individual candles represent your individual lives before today.  Lighting the center candle represents that your two lives are now joined to one light, and represents the joining together of your two families and sets of friends to one.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> If children are involved:</div> <div> The lighting of the center candle represents not only the union of __________ and ___________ in marriage, but the unity formed in this new family in which your lives will now shine as one family.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>