The Opening to my Mom and Gary's Wedding

Today, we come together to celebrate love and a new beginning. For all of recorded time, man has been seeking to define love, and today there are so many definitions that it was impossible to pick just one to describe the love we celebrate here today. For what makes this love unique is that today we do not just celebrate the love between two people, but the love between two families who have been broken, mended, and blended in so many different ways and yet have still thrived. We celebrate the love of friends who have always remained true, who have always been ready to jump in and offer help at the slightest request, who have found their way back to us after years apart. We celebrate the love we still hold for those whom we’ve lost and who are watching us from a better place. We celebrate our love for the beauty to be found in life’s simplest gifts: in song, in nature, in fellowship with those we hold dear, in the laughter of a baby, in the embrace of someone who cares.

But above all of that, we do come together to celebrate a love that has brought joy and hope to the hearts of everyone who has witnessed it. There could not be two people in the world who better understand that meaning of love that we have all been searching for. Carrie and Gary have spent years of their lives sacrificing their needs, their desires, and their happiness for the people they love. They gave up who they were to be what those they loved needed them to be. There also could not be two people in the world more deserving of a love like the love they have given to others.

So, today we are here to celebrate and share in their joy, that they have survived so many of life’s struggles and have found new love and a new beginning because, “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”