3 Sample Elopement Ceremonies, updated 4-14-2023

These are three short mini-ceremonies that are just long enough to be personal and meaningful, yet brief – perfect for an elopement. Choose a ceremony as-is, or mix and match readings and words to fit your own relationship. Take a look at the full-size ceremonies and other readings on this site, too, which can be shortened in length to fit your needs. (You might also choose this shorter length text: when it’s going to be 100 degrees and your wedding is in full sun, or when most of your guests are standing, or when you’ll be walking into a mosquito-filled forest.)

Elopement 1: Nice and Short

Welcome Message

We are here today to share with NAME and NAME this very significant moment in their lives as they become a married couple.

Reading

In a marriage, love is more than a feeling, it is an action. Love is the commitment you make to be present in your marriage, demonstrating your love through what you do and what you say. It’s being there for each other every day, “for better or worse, in sickness and health”. It’s having someone to laugh with, to hug and to snuggle with on cold nights. It’s someone who will get the inside jokes only the two of you will ever understand. It can be a vulnerability and sharing that is found nowhere else.

Marriage is believing in each other, and cheering each other on in life. It’s someone you know feels the same way about you as you feel about them. Marriage is having a confidant, a partner in crime, and a best friend.

Declaration of Intent

As you look at one another, I ask you each to affirm your purpose for being here today:

Do you, NAME, take NAME to be your lawfully married partner/husband/wife,
to love and respect, and to be loyal to from this day forth?
“I do.”

Repeat for other partner.

Vows & Rings

NAME, as you place the ring on NAME’s finger, please repeat after me:

“I, NAME, want you, NAME, to be my wife/husband/partner.
I promise to care for you,
to trust and respect you,
to share myself with you,
and grow with you,
for as long as we both live.”

Repeat for other partner.

Closing

Having shared your vows in the presence of these witnesses, it is my honor to now pronounce you to be officially married. You may kiss. Congratulations!


Elopement 2: Mini Cosmic Love

Welcome Message

An author named Robert Fulghum once said:
We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.

Today we celebrate the marriage of NAME and NAME, who came together as wonderfully weird individuals, and have found a mutual weirdness they call love.

Reading

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson once said:
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.”

You two have created this love and made your lives mean something together.

As you two look at one another, remember that love is not just a word you say, but an action. Love is the commitment you make to be present in your marriage. That means being there for each other each and every day. It means communicating in honesty, expressing your gratitude, and doing the simple things that demonstrate your love for each other.

Declaration of Intent

With that in mind:

Do you, NAME, take NAME to be your lawfully married partner,
Do you intend to love and be faithful to them/him/her
through all of the time you share on this earth together?

“I do.”

Vows & Rings

NAME, do you have the ring? Place the ring on NAME’s finger, and repeat after me:

I promise today to be your partner/wife/husband;
to love, honor and cherish you
with every atom of my being
through all of life’s adventures.
NAME, I love you.

Closing

It is now my honor to pronounce you, NAME and NAME, to be officially married. Congratulations!


Elopement 3

Welcome Message

We are here to unite these two people, NAME and NAME, in marriage.

Reading

Today the two of you become a little more than you were before. In the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of your family and friends, your bond is one that is to be treated with respect and seriousness. You have made the choice to be together, and stay together through all that life brings, the big life issues, the small joys, the accomplishments, wins and losses, and every mundane thing that happens in between.

As you look at one another, remember what brought you here. Your love, yes, but also all of the decisions you have made to keep your relationship growing. You each have come to recognize the value in yourselves and your relationship – that you are both deserving of love and worth the effort that goes into loving each other.

Declaration of Intent

With that in mind I ask:

Do you, NAME and NAME, desire to be partners in marriage?
Do you promise to make every effort to share your love and respect for each other from this day on?
“We do.” Or “I do.”

Vows & Rings

NAME, as you place the ring on NAME’s finger, please repeat after me:
“I, NAME, want you, NAME, to be my husband/wife/partner,
I want us to co-create our life together with honesty and compassion,
and I want to be your partner/wife/husband from this day forward.”

Closing

Having witnessed your vows with those who are present here, it is my honor to now pronounce you to be officially married. Congratulations!

Print Friendly, PDF & Email