43 Wedding Rings

A couple who married
at Lancaster Cathedral

When a couple get married, they exchange rings as a symbol of the bond of marriage. The circle of the ring represents undying love and the continually renewed vows of the married couple. Marriage is a vocation created by God. God created man and woman and their mutual love expressed in marriage becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love that God has for us. 

[ccc 1621-24, 1663]

YOUCAT 266 How is a Church wedding celebrated?

As a rule a wedding must take place publicly.  The bride and bridegroom are questions as to their intention to marry.  The PRIEST or the DEACON blesses the rings.  The bride and bridegroom exchange rings and mutually promise "to be true in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health" and vow to each other: "I will love you and honour you all the days of my life." The celebrant ratifies the wedding and administers the BLESSING 

CCC 1603 "The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage." The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."


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