One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your own soul.
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Stumbling across Gemma and Emily through the many hours and the bursting of connections through the world wide web – is a story that I could not wait to share within these pages. I have not met these 2 incredible ladies from the UK, but with their permission, I share something so sacred with you – their lesbian wedding ceremony script and vows. The depth and width of their ‘love’, love in its pure form, its truth and knowing that can be as rare as the colour 9. Their love story is something that you are not witness to every day and this level of ‘soulness’ feels like ancient memories spoken lifetimes ago from this beautiful couple.
For the purpose of sharing their Ceremony Script, we bring another stunning aspect to these pages and that is the imagery of Rohit Jhawar a stunning photographer that has photographed another beautiful couple, Kate and Grace, both on their Engagement and their breathtaking Wedding Day. Gratitude creates beating hearts and breathless moments that connect us all and from afar we know that these four gorgeous women bring something so beautiful to these words within this sacred medium. May this truly honoring and loving acknowledgement of ‘love is simply just love in its entirety’ remind us that we must all stand up and show our own souls! With love xo
Gemma & Emily’s Love Story
INTRO
Like most couples Gemma and Emily chose a celebrant for their wedding day. Her name is Hannah and Hannah introduced the ceremony and spoke a little bit about what marriage means to us. At Gemma and Emily’s request, she also asked guests to commit to working to make sure the kind of joy they were celebrating that day becomes possible for everyone and made mention of their appreciation for the people in the LGBTQ community who sacrificed so much over many years to make their marriage possible.
COMMUNITY VOWS
Hannah asked everyone to make some vows to Gemma and Emily, as our community, including:
Will all of you here today promise to surround Gemma and Emily in love, and champion and respect their partnership?
Will you trust and encourage them to find their own way and love them all the more for doing so?
Will you be the people who help them overcome hard times and celebrate awesome ones?
Will you promise to always inspire their dreams, have their backs, and take on the world with them?
Gemma and Emily joyously shared ‘Thankfully, everyone said, ‘we will’ and we had no hecklers.’
FIRST READING
Their friends Will & Yousef did the first reading, which was a reworked version of a Dr. Suess poem Gemma adapted as part of her proposal to Emily.
Congratulations, today is your day,
You’re off to great places, you’re off far away,
You’ve got brains in your head, and feet in your shoes,
You can go in any direction you choose,
You’ve been up some dark streets in your journey ‘til now,
And sometimes it was hard to see a way out,
The people you’ve met haven’t always been kind,
But those people you met, you can now leave behind,
You’ve got sunshine and love in your life now instead,
You’ve got beauty and magic and dreams in your head,
Oh! The places you’ll go!
And if things get hard, and you both need a rest,
You’ll show endless patience, and beat every test,
You’ve got buckets of love, you’ve got wide-open hearts,
You’ve got all the ingredients, for the perfect start,
You’re forgiving and kind, you’re fierce and you’re strong,
Your love for each other, is second to none,
Oh! The places you’ll go!
So together we’re certain you’ll fly, and you’ll soar,
Together you’re over 100ft tall,
Endlessly learning, you’re an unstoppable team,
Embracing life’s lessons, and living your dreams,
You’re one special couple, you’re on the right road,
You’ll journey together now, sharing the load,
Kids, you’ll move mountains!
THE PROMISES
Gemma and Emily made promises much more tailored to them than those included in a civil ceremony, which they wrote with Hannah after long discussions about what was most important to them in our marriage:
Compassion: “You are wonderfully aligned in the values that really matter – making sure your friends and family are happy and supported, communicating fully and honestly with each other, and encouraging the other to be open-hearted and kind. So, will you promise to continue to keep that compassion at the centre of your married life together?”
Dynamism: “You both share a passion for your work, and are always looking to learn more, and explore the world together. You respect one another’s drive and passion for life, and that passion inspires each of you to reach your own new goals. Will you promise to stay curious and to support and encourage one another’s dreams, throughout your life as wives?”
Being a Team: “Your choice to love and be with one another no matter what is your constant in life – it is ‘the support, the simplifier, the equalizer and the light at the end of the tunnel.’ Will you promise to keep that commitment to building and sustaining a relationship that serves and nurtures you both?”
THE VOWS
Gemma and Emily wrote their own vows which they read to each other from ribbons they had written them on. 7 metres each!
Gemma went first, and literally destroyed the room – everyone cried like a baby. Emily went next, after she’d finished crying herself, and even the celebrant shed a tear. It was an incredibly heartfelt and moving part of the ceremony and meant a lot to both of us. We glad we didn’t give each other a sneak-peek of our vows, which we had thought about doing, because it was so worth experiencing it for the first time in the ceremony.
GEMMA’S VOWS
Before we met my ideas about what a relationship could be were so limited and unimaginative in comparison to what we have together. I didn’t know there could be such a rainbow of happiness and that someone could know and love me as intimately and completely as you do.
The years we’ve spent together have been the most beautiful of my life. Years where I’ve laughed more than ever, grown, and learnt more than ever, and where I’ve felt freer than ever to be myself.
I want to thank you for choosing me to be your person. And for your constant and unwavering belief in me, including when I was ill, and everything felt so incredibly scary for both of us. You were so patient with me, and it felt like you would have fought for me forever. But thankfully you didn’t have to, and what would easily have torn other people apart only made us more resilient and closer than ever.
I like to view it as the core of our tree growing stronger. Time and experiences making the bark tougher, weather leaving grooves in the trunk and the leaves of our relationship stretching out into bloom. We saw every side of each other during that time and for me it only confirmed what I’d thought since we first met – that you are my home.
Since then, almost everything about our lives has changed except how much we want to be with each other. You’re still such a remarkable person to me. You’re an incredible mix of kick ass and compassionate. Someone who makes big things happen, who always leaves an impression, who has the answers and who makes the people around you feel stronger. You’re never ever boring. You care intensely about the people that you love and the things you believe in, and you’re not afraid to stand up for them, often at cost to yourself.
I deeply respect and admire you for that and I continue to look at you the way I did when we first met – like you are magnificent. And just like then, I still just want to be around you, to hear what you think about things. To ask you questions and tell you what I think. Because you make me feel like everything, I think matters. Like everything I do is the best thing ever. And like I can do anything with you by my side, but that I don’t have to if I don’t want to.
I want to make you feel like that, and I promise that’s something I’ll always try to do. I also promise to cheer you on, like you do for me, to be in your corner, as you are for me. And just as you help me to feel like I am enough, I promise to show you that you are never too much. To me, there is no such thing as too much of you.
As your wife I will continue appreciate all of you, because everything you are deserves love and attention. I will listen to and believe in your ideas, because I know you have so many great ones. I will support your dreams because they are mine dreams too. And I will choose you over and over again to be my partner, my future, my equal and my world. I love you.
EMILY’S VOWS
Gemma, the only way I know you are not a dream, is I could not have possibly thought up all the incredible things about you on my own. You are totally irreplaceable, to me and to everyone who loves you, and I promise to keep showing you that however I can.
I never understood what it is to be truly loved, what it is to have your love wholly accepted, until you. You make me feel whole, not because you make up half of me, but because you accept all of me into the life we share together. I promise to always do the same for you.
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen or can imagine. And whilst that is the easiest thing to see, it is the least interesting thing about you. I spend every minute I am away from you, looking forward to seeing you. I promise to never stop showing you how much you light up the room when you walk in.
Everything in life matters more because I am with you. You make everything that’s good, excellent, and everything that’s bad, better. I promise to make sure you always know that you matter, more than anything else, and show that I care about what is important to you.
You have always been an impressive woman, but since being with you I have seen how many incredible things you are capable of, and how you are able to do that without stepping on anyone else. I promise to always try to be the foundation you need to achieve everything you want in life.
I want to thank you for how fun and beautiful our life is because of you, your attention to every detail of what’s needed for us to be happy and fulfilled is the reason our life just keeps getting better. I promise to work with you to build our future, and never take for granted what you bring to our partnership.
I don’t think soulmates are found; I think they’re made. We have helped each other become the perfect partner, and I am so grateful to have the ability to love as much as I do with you. We know all too well that we cannot promise to banish sadness from our lives altogether, but we also know what an epic team we make when there are challenges to take on. I promise to always be on your team, and to cheer you on, whatever life brings our way.
I promise to keep verbalising my adoration for you with increasingly bizarre hypotheticals and metaphors. Like, if I had to choose between never seeing you again, or never seeing anything but you, I’d choose you. Or, like I wish I could melt you down and drink you. But I also promise to never actually do any of those things.
Every day I think it’s not physically possible to love you anymore than I already do, and then it happens. You deserve the sort of love that lifts you up, shouts about itself, shows you off, and shares your brilliance with the world. So, I stand up here, with the most important people in both of our lives as witnesses, and promise to you, and to them, that I will love you that way for as long as I’m alive. I cannot wait to be your wife.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Gemma and Emily completed their ceremony with the exchanging of rings lighting a unity candle. The flame was to represent that ‘their individual lights will continue to glow separately but also together as a united flame.’ They were announced by their celebrant as Mrs & Mrs Collins-Ellis.
Contact Rohit Jhawar www.rohitjhawar.com
Imagery // Rohit Jhawar Photography // Words written by Robyn Bull / Gemma & Emma