The Unity Wine Ceremony is experiencing somewhat of arenaissancehere in the UK. The use of this ceremony element, particularly at wedding ceremonies and vow renewals is simple and full of symbolism / ritual and understood by all. Below are 13 samples of how the Unity Wine Ceremony can be weaved into a ceremony by a civil celebrant.
Wine Ceremony 1
This glass of wine symbolizes the sum of your life experiences. It contains within it the sweetflavoursof love, joy, wonder and contentment.
This same cup, at times, holds the bitter taste of sadness, pain, and despair. When you drink deeply of this cup of life, you invite the full spectrum of experiences into your life.
As you drink from this cup, you accept the commitment to draw from your marriage all that you need to wash away the bitterflavoursof life and tosavourthe sweetflavoursyoumayencounter on your journey together.
Wine Ceremony 2
As you have shared wine from a single cup, so may you, share contentment, peace andfulfilmentfrom the cup of life.
May you find life‚’s joys heightened, its bitterness sweetened, and each of its moments hallowed by true companionship and love.
Wine Ceremony 3
Life is a series of contradictions. It is said that all things end and yet all things continue. All things change and yet all things remain the same.
Wine has been called the symbol of life. It‚’s like the blood flowing within our bodies. By sharing this glass, the two become one, the parts become whole, two paths intertwined, each separate, yet united in love.
Wine Ceremony 4
Wine, like the life-blood that pulses through our veins, is a symbol of life. It is created through the work of hands and minds.
Love, a feeling, in constant motion like the sea, lies in the soul alone. Just as wine stimulates the body, love stimulates our souls to live life to the full.
As you share this wine glass today, may you be joined in a love as fluid as the drink itself, yet as solid as the hands which made it.
Wine Ceremony 5
This wine glass is to remind you of your love. Delicate, yet strong; filled with love, yet with room for more. It symbolises two people coming together to share one life, one love.
Use this loving cup for miracles. Fill it with forgiveness, understanding and appreciation. Drink deeply and often. Whenever you do, remember this:
Love is real. Once created, it cannot be destroyed. It is eternal.
Wine Ceremony 6May this cup serve as a ceremonial loving cup for your relationship.
Use this Loving Cup to find your way back home to each other when you have moved apart. It symbolises two coming together to share one love, one life, and the opportunity to live you lives in unison.
In times of unrest, may at least one of you have the presence to fill it with forgiveness.
Wine Ceremony 7
In this glass are the fruits, Mankind and the Earth. The years of our lives are like a cup of wine that is poured out for the sake oflabour,honourand love. Many days you will sit at thesametable and eat and drink together. Many are the experiences you will share. As with a glass of wine, one of you may find it sweet, the other perhaps dry or somehow different. Let the drink you share today serve as a reminder that although you may perceive things very differently, being right is never more important than being happy. With this space that you give each other, always putting your commitment to love andhonourone another first, your livestogether will grow deeper, richer and greatly satisfying, like a rare and fine wine. You may now drink from this fountain of love.
Wine Ceremony 8
Kahlil Gibran writes in ‚”the Prophet‚”:
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other‚’s cup, but drink not from one cup.
(Groom fills glass with wine)
Fill each other‚’s cup but drink from your own. Let this symbolise your promise to each other to be yourselves to the fullest and at the same time tohonourthe unity you share as husband andwife and to cherish the gifts of love and nurturing each gives the other.
I invite you now to drink to one another . . . Let this drinking of wine also remind you that what matters most in life is the spirit, not the letter; the wine, not the cup.
Wine Ceremony 9Like wine, life is a process of change, growth, compromise and wisdom. As grapes are pressed to give forth their juice, so under the press of time our lives give forth theirlabour,honour,and love. Long ago, wine was revered as the blood of the earth.
When the bride and groom pledged themselves to one another, they drank wine from a single cup, three times, signifying that they were becoming one blood, one family, one kin.
Cup-raising was an invitation to family and friends to witness this oath and hold the bride and groom to their vows. It is also to remind thenewly-wedsand their families that a good wine is only good,if it is consumed… so must life be consumed.Savourit till the last drop.
Wine Ceremony 10
____ and ____, this ‚”Cup of Life‚” contains within it a wine with certain properties that are sweet and symbolic of happiness, joy, ecstasy and love just as the years of life ahead of you together will be. This same wine also holds some bitter properties that symbolise disappointment, sorrow, grief, despair, and life‚’s trials and tribulations that you will inevitably run into during your new life together.
Be reminded to forgive the frailties of one another‚’s flaws, for they will be overcome, and bear together life‚’s adversities and be confident that the ‚”good‚” will always return and the strength in your love will always prevail.
Through love, your flaw becomes your strength.
Through love, does the world reveal itself.
Through love, each union is made.
Drink from this cup together, as you do, earnestly seek the power and wisdom to use all the pleasure and prosperity that may come to you with gratitude, modesty, and with sympathy for those less fortunate than yourselves.
Wine Ceremony 11
Together the sweet and the bitterness of this wine also represent life‚’s many Journeys, and all of the experiences that are a natural part of it. Those who drink deeply from the ‚”Cup of Life‚” with an open heart and willing spirit, invite the full range of challenges and experiences into their being.
This ‚”Cup of Life‚” is symbolic of the pledges you have made to one another this day, to share together the fullness of life. As you drink from this cup for the second time, you acknowledge to one another that your lives ‚- until this moment separate ‚- have become one. Drink now, and may the cup of your lives be overflowing!
Wine Ceremony 12
As you have shared this cup of wine, so may you share your lives. May all the sweetness that it holds for you be that much sweeter because you have tasted it together. May you find life‚’s joys heightened, its bitterness sweetened, and all of life enriched by a constant love.
As you share the wine from this cup, so may you share your lives. As of this moment, you belong to the same current which will carry you to the highest peaks of life. May this bond hold forever true!
Please share this cup of wine one last time as anacknowledgementof the new bond between you as lifepartners, soul mates, and this evening as Husband and Wife.
Family Wine Ceremony 13Wine is a universal symbol — of the richness of life and sweetness of love. So it is appropriate, that on this joyous occasion, you toast life with this ancient symbol.
(Parents), please fill BRIDE and GROOM‚’s glasses and take a sip. This represents the continuous connection between parents and children. It‚’s also symbolic of the love and encouragement you have provided them and will always provide them in their lives together.
Hand the cups to your children, and they will toast each other by drinking from their own cups as a sign of maintaining themselves and their individuality. (Drink)
Now BRIDE and GROOM drink from each other‚’s cups as a sign of sharing yourselves and your life together. (Drink)
Let this wine ceremony represent the spirit of your lives together. By sharing this wine now, you have shown your desire to blend your families together even stronger. May you always find life‚’s joy heightened and its bitterness sweetened.
Thanks to Eric