You have just sealed your relationship by the giving and receiving of rings and the exchange of your vows. You have promised here, before God, these witnesses and myself, to share the rest of your lives with each other. This marriage covenant is a solemn pledge between two people who agree that they will commit themselves to one another completely. Marriage is also the creation of a new family born of the nurturing love which each of you have experienced in your individual homes. Today, this new family is symbolized through the pouring of sand.

I am now going to ask your family members to each pour a portion of sand, colored to represent the individual strands of family history, into the container representing the new family which you have created, here, in our presence.


Now, I am going to ask the Bride and Groom to pour their portions of sand.

As these two measures of sand are poured into the third container, the individual portions of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so will your marriage be: Whole, Indivisible and under the protection of Almighty God.