BLESSING OF THE SEA

BRIDE and GROOM, as we stand by the ocean, may your love always be as constant and unchanging as these never-ending waves that break before us, flowing endlessly from the depths of the sea.

Your love came softly upon each other's hearts, just as the sea foam lies softly before us, and just as there will never be a morning without the ocean's flow, may there never be a day without your love for each other.

As the tides ebb and flow so to, do the fortunes of life. Footprints in the sand are washed away, driftwood moves on its endless quest for a peaceful harbor. Only a deep and abiding love can withstand the tides of change in two lives.

Pledge yourselves to each other this day, and promise to be as faithful and dependable as the tide. Just as these waters nourish the earth and sustain life, may your constant love nourish and sustain each other until the end of time.

YOUR LOVE MUST BE AN OCEAN by Nicholas Gordon

Your love must be an ocean and a stream,
A song and silence, pilgrimage and end.
It will change as will and passion bend,
Yet, changeless, be what life can only seem.
Love remains the night beyond the dream,
The choice that cannot choose but reason rend,
The fact that makes a fortune of a friend
And will the travesties of time redeem.
So flow with pleasure down the mountainside
Through years and years of paradise and pain,
Choosing as you change to stay combined.
For there is something underneath the ride
That you need only turn to, to attain,
A grace so beautiful it stops the wind.

A SEA OF LOVE by Joseph Stotz

I am caught by the undertow
within the heart of the sea
In all of the oceans beauty
it was only by your love
that I ever felt free
Force is not in need
to drag me any deeper
and in my hand I hold my heart
as I question to take it off my sleeve
Heaven has no greater beauty
than this twisted sea