Costello Wedding

Order of Service

1. Procession

Saige (Officiant), Ian, and Ben

Amy (Kaylie’s Mom) and Dustin (Kaylie’s Uncle)

Melissa (Ian’s Mom) and David (Ian’s Dad)

Noah Delucca and Joanna Walden

Timothy Shlorf and Leanne Bailey

Jacob Laboy and Emma Tapia

Tanner Easlick and Lindsay Carr

Lucas Roof and Ashley Delucca

Emiliee Cook

Flower Girls

Before we begin, the Bride and Groom want me to ask that you please keep your phones away during the ceremony as there is a professional taking photos and there will be a time for you to take your own photos! Thank you.

2. Bridal March

Please stand for the bride.

Kaylie walks out with Dad (Doug).

3. Presentation of the Bride

Who gives this woman in marriage?

Dad Doug: “Her mother and I.”

4. Welcome/Introduction

You may be seated. The bride and groom would like to give everyone a moment to take personal pictures. After this time they ask you keep your phones away For the rest of the ceremony.

Now, on behalf of the bride and groom, welcome and thank you for coming to one of the most important days of their lives. We are gathered before our Creator to witness the coming together of Ian and Kaylie.

I have known Ian for quite some time due to Lakewood Baptist Church. I did not get closer with Ian until he got into high school. I remember going to Snowbird with the youth and Ian coming and confessing sin to me. He was a young believer who wanted to live as a faithful Christian but still had worldly desires and habits, as many of us do. But Ian did something then that not many of us do: he confessed it and asked for help.

This resolve to seek help and desire to grow has not gone away and has been clearly seen in our times of premarital counseling over the past year. He is honest and genuinely loves God. He earnestly wants God to be his treasure. Thank you Ian for teaching me in your honesty and real-ness. I have seen you grow more and more into a godly young man. I look forward to seeing you continue to grow and mature in your faith as you lead Kaylie in your marriage.

Now Kaylie we did not know until we began meeting for our premarital counseling sessions. But through the conversations we had about her life and upbringing; her faith and how she views God and the world, we have begun to know her more deeply. Now I see she has the same desire as Ian and is still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like. She wants God to be her treasure. She wants to grow and change to look more like Christ. And I also look forward to seeing you continue to grow and mature in your faith as you follow Ian in your marriage.

5. Charge

Now before we get along with getting yall married, I must give you both charges. See, marriage is not for the weak in faith. It is not an insignificant act to bind yourself to another for your life. This will come with really amazing times, and yet really difficult times. And here is the kicker: the hard times are inevitable and how they affect your marriage is mostly dependent on both of your reactions to minor and major things. It is your reaction as a husband and your reaction a wife that will make some days really sweet, and some days really difficult. It is your reactions that will make confession of sin welcomed as it is a sign of growth or shamed as it disrupts your norm. It is your reactions that will make abrupt tragedy lead you closer to one another and God, or further apart. I could keep on, but all-in-all: what you both do matters so much.

First, I’ll address you, Ian, with charges from Scripture to husbands. Above all, before anything else, you must love your wife like Christ loved the church. Consider Paul’s words to husbands:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:25–32, CSB)

It is your duty as a husband to love Kaylie in this way. To give of yourself for the sake of your wife. We hear this and think “Oh yeah, I’ll jump in front of a bus for her!” And as romantic as that sounds and I do hope you’re willing to do that, that is not the sum of sacrifice for you in marriage. Instead, sacrifice of yourself is something that happens on very little levels everyday. She comes first. And I do not say this to affirm “Happy wife Happy Life.” Happiness is not your goal for Kaylie; holiness is. Holiness means that sometimes you say or do what is necessary, even if it makes her unhappy, for the sake of loving her and her looking more like Christ. Do not adopt that stupid mantra.

It is your duty, too, to disciple her daily to know Christ more deeply. To protect her from physical harm, but even more so spiritual evils. It is your duty to wash her in the word. What does this mean? This means reading and talking about God’s word shall not be foreign in your home and you, Ian, should be the initiator.

I will leave you with a warning that the Apostle Peter gives husbands in his letter to the church.

1 Peter 3:7 CSB

Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

This is God’s inspired Word: if you as a husband are not understanding and gentle and loving with Kaylie in her failures and struggles, then God will not listen to your prayers. Why is this consequence so intense? Because when you are not being understanding with her, you are treating her as beneath you. You are treating her as sub-image-bearer of God and this sin is great. Do not make the Living God turn His ear away from you.

Now Kaylie I will do the same for you with the same passages of Scripture. Starting with Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:22–24 CSB

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.

This word “submit” is seen as a slur in our culture, but the Bible uses it as a act of love. It’s the same verb used earlier in Ephesians describing how everyone in the church should treat one another. Submission is something we do to those we love and trust, namely our leaders, in an act of love and trust for the leader, and more so for God who placed that leader over us. In marriage, God designated the husband to be the leader.

Therefore, Kaylie, you must love Ian by submitting to him as he leads your family. You must show him grace and understanding in his failures. You must be strong where he is weak, supporting him in all things. Your goal for Ian is still the same as his goal for you: that he would be holy and look more like Christ. We see this in Peter’s instruction to wives.

1 Peter 3:1–2 CSB

In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives.

See, Ian will fail. He will fall into sin. He may even drift away from the Lord. It is your job, Kaylee, to live a pure, reverent life so that even in sin Ian can see your love and purity and see Christ in you. Then he would be won over from sin to God due to God’s display of His Son in you.

Finally, I charge you both to let your spouse be the primary recipient in your lives of the fruit of the Spirit. Paul lays out this fruit in Galatians 5:22-23

Galatians 5:22–23 CSB

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.

Please do not be a husband or a wife who people see are kinder, more patient, more loving, more peaceful, more faithful, more gentle, and more self-controlled to those outside their marriage. You are a team. It is always you two, with Christ, versus sin and evil. Hold strong in your marriage. Don’t commit treason against one another, but always put the Lord, and, secondly, one another above yourself.

6. Presentation of Biblical Marriage

Now, attendees, friends and family of Ian and Kaylee, you are not exempt from a charge! I have the most important charge to you.

If you want to love Ian and Kaylee, truly, you must push them to their Savior and Lord until they die. But in order to do that rightly, you must know your Creator.

This universe did not begin to exist randomly. Rather, there is an Intelligent Creator, a Being over all that is seen and unseen, and He created you in His image, unlike anything else in creation.

At the beginning, man’s relationship with our Creator was good and right. We walked with God with no obstructions. But we sinned against Him. You may say “No Saige, Adam and Eve did, but I never did!” This is false. They were our representatives; you would have done the same. This is displayed in your sinfulness now.

It is easy to see this world is broken and sinful and wretched, but nobody wants to admit they are the problem. Let me tell you my friends: we are the problem. We choose sin daily. We ignore our Creator daily. We rebel against Him. We curse Him and His ways thinking we know better than the Almighty God, and this rebellious nature, this sinful spirit, will inevitably lead us to eternal separation from Him after death.

But that is not the end of it, or it doesn’t have to be. Rather than leave us to rot in our sin, to die and send us criminals to our punishment we deserve, God intervened. He stepped into His Creation. He lived perfectly, unlike you and I. He never sinned. He did this that He may be our perfect sacrifice. Listen to these words: Jesus Christ took on your sin, He took on your condemnation that you deserved so that you may live Abundantly here on Earth and Eternally after you die. He died a rancid death that we should have died. And then He resurrected by His own power, securing our salvation.

So how can you be saved? How can your sins be forgiven? You do not have to be good enough, because you aren’t and you will never be. You do not have to do enough good works because none of your works are good. All we can offer to Him are filthy rags. So how can we be saved?? The only way to salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. Give Him your life, wholly. Die to self daily. Let your relationship be restored to your Creator fully.

When you stand before God at the end of your life and He looks at you and says “Show me your righteousness.” What will you say? If you show Him all your good works, He will say “That isn’t enough.” and send you away. I pray that you will say “I have none, I only have Jesus and His righteousness.”

If you accept this truth, you must remind this young couple of it often. That is how you can best support them. Know Jesus yourself and point them to Him forever.

7. Consent

Now that you have received my charges to you. I have two questions to ask you both. If you agree to these two questions, please respond with “I do.”

Ian, do you before God your Creator take Kaylie to be your wife?

Do you pledge to love her, forsaking all others, as Christ loves the church, through all the good and bad until your dying day?

Kaylie, do you before God your Creator take Ian to be your husband?

Do you pledge to love him, forsaking all others, as Christ loves the church, through all the good and bad until your dying day?

8. Vows

Ian and Kaylie will be pulling their vows from the book of Ruth. Originally this vow was given from a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law. Ruth said this to Naomi committing herself to never leave her even though it would be far more beneficial for Ruth to go without her. Beginning with Ian, I ask that you’d repeat after more as you vow yourself to one another.

Ruth Vow:

“I, Ian, take you, Kaylie, to be my wife, | wherever you go I will go, | wherever you live, I will live; | your people will be my people, | and your God my God. | Where you die, I will die, | and there I will be buried. | May the Lord punish me, and do so severely | if anything but death separates you and I.”

“I, Kaylie, take you, Ian, to be my husband, | wherever you go I will go, | wherever you live, I will live; | your people will be my people, | and your God my God. | Where you die, I will die, | and there I will be buried. | May the Lord punish me, and do so severely | if anything but death separates you and I.”

9. Exchanging of Rings

Ben, you can now present the rings and you guys can put them on one another.

10. Prayer

O Father in Heaven. Above all in this moment, as we see the display of Your Gospel in Ian and Kaylie’s coming together, we give You praise. We give You glory! You deserve even more, being our perfect, loving God, but yet we will give You what we can. I pray that every time we see this young couple that we’d be reminded of Your gospel, the way in which Christ loved His Church by dying for her.

I thank You, Father, for Ian and Kaylie. Thank You for introducing them to one another, by Your grace. Thank You for choosing that they would give themselves to one another for the rest of their lives.

I ask You, o Lord, to bless their marriage. Let it be full of love and grace. Let Your Word dwell richly within it. Let the fruit of the Spirit be constantly displayed in their marriage. Let the enemy be struck down as he tries to hurt this good marriage. Protect them from evil, Lord. Protect them from the lies of the enemy that will come, even lies about their spouse. Let them stand strong on Your Word together and fight off such lies and temptations. Your Spirit in us has enabled us to be able to fight off such attacks. Thank You for that Lord.

O God, give them a sweet honeymoon, and long, joy-filled lives. Use their marriage to preach the Gospel to all they may encounter.

We love You, God. We praise You. I pray these things in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, amen.

11. Pronouncement

As Ian and Kaylie have formed this covenant before God and before all of us this day and have pledged their faith to one another, and displayed this through the giving and receiving of rings, I pronounce them husband and wife. In the words of Jesus our Lord, “What God has joined together, let no one separate.”

12. Kiss

Ian, you may now kiss your bride.

13. Introduction of Mr. And Mrs. Costello

It is my privilege to present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Costello

14. Recession

Everyone who is not family please go into the ballroom for refreshments and then you can come back in here and take a seat while the bridal party and families take their photos. Thank you for your patience!