A Study Guide and a Seminar of Fun and Enlightenment

by Heather Carlile

Six Modules for Designing Your Relationship:

1. Knowing Our Unique Needs
2. Deep Friendship
3. Emotional Intimacy
4. Romantic Partnership
5. Mature Love
6. Relationship Styles

Dear Friends,

Over the years of working as a Marriage Counselor, I created many materials to help couples learn quickly for practical application immediately. I finally assembled these gems into my Designer Marriage Study Guide. When you work with me privately, on the telephone, online or in classes. I provide these to help you improve your relationship into a Designer Marriage – a relationship and mutual lifestyle which is designed by you, for  you!

My husband Jack and I invite you to join us for our next Designer Marriage seminar or for our next Relationship Cruise!

We’ll be scheduling another one soon. Just give me a call or send me an email!

16 Components Create a Designer Marriage -

YOUR Design!

View the 16 components which make up my Designer Marriage Model below. How many do  you have? How many have you found yourselves neglecting?

Knowing Our Needs examines your original relationship script from your family traditions and helps you clarify the basis of your personality style with its core needs and values in an intimate relationship. Using the Carlile Marriage Model, you’ll assess what you need in order to fill all areas of your marriage inside and outside of the relationship.

Deep Friendship is built on communication and familiarity. In this section, we discuss the importance of valuing each others’ hopes and dreams and the paramount skill of listening. We learn how the Bunny and Rabbit Ya’But Game sabotages communication and what to do instead. We provide agendas for marriage meetings and teach how to replace defense patterns with safe complaints.

Emotional Intimacy requires a passionate and respectful attitude. Emotional intelligence and self-regulation are necessary for the trust and vulnerability possible in a mature relationship. Unregulated emotions, conflict avoidance and toxic negativity can destroy intimacy. This class gives guidelines and descriptions to avoid the five eschelons of frustration, how to fight nice and how to use anger as a constructive force.

Romantic Partners are masters of admiration, affection and adoration. They are skilled with the art of romance by having skills such as soothing each other, knowing their partners love languages and creating special dates. We teach the chemistry of sex and how to avoid accumulating the detriments to a lasting and expanding love life.

Love and Happiness, at its mature level of intensity, requires vulnerability which comes only with adulthood and authenticity.  Romantic love expressed with spiritual reverence and complete honesty is for adults only because of the requisite deep self-knowledge, good-will and unconditional acceptance. This class teaches the seven practices of love for grown-ups.

Relationship Style is a direct expression of how you choose to design your marriage. Here we learn how romantic best friends date, have a mutually-satisfying division of labor and are in accord as parents. One of the chief art forms in a Designer Marriage is in creating your special roles and rituals. We will help you cultivate your traditions and develop your social style.

“Every year we learn more about how to help couples become romantic best friends.
Best friends communicate freely and completely; they’re a team in solving problems.
Romantic partners enjoy affection, intimacy and flirting.”
-Heather Carlile

The Seven Symbols of Marriage Wedding Gifts

When you wish to give a special gift for a wedding, a renewal of vows or an anniversary, you can print the short messages below and wrap them along with each of the symbolic gifts. I like to start with a large crystal bowl and insert the smaller gifts in its large box. Or, sometimes, it’s a stack of individually-wrapped boxes tied together with a sturdy satin ribbon. I hope this makes a delightful surprise for your loved ones.

Abundance – The Vase, Bowl or Chalice
Your marriage commitment represents the sacred abundance which is naturally refilled to overflowing with the infinite supply of life, opportunities, wealth, health and love. “Expect your every need to be met. Expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level.” ~Eileen Caddy. With such confidence you share endless enthusiasm for life…freedom and aliveness.

Time – The Clock
The minutes and hours you spend together grow your friendship and your romance. Marriage requires the most precious, irreplaceable part of life…time. With the power of time we grow and change. We attain the capacity for self-knowledge, strengthened character, passionate feelings and a new magnitude of intelligence and wisdom. “Memory is the mother of all wisdom.” ~ Aeschylus. With time, we love even more deeply.

Love – The Heart, Heart Wine Glasses, Crystal Heart Candleholders
This crystal heart and the rings you have exchanged represent the unending fount of love a man and a woman become for each other. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~Robert A. Heinlein. Love binds you in reverent trust, faithful commitment, affectionate friendship and tender adoration in your relationship, your home and your community. Love lies in your souls and lives in your marriage.

Pleasure – The Chocolate
This chocolate and your loving kisses are a symbol of the ever consumed and consumable sensual pleasures of La Dolce Vita when lovers relish the scent, savor, sex and sound for the delicious fun of romance which evaporates in the present moment. The novel, the new, the exciting, the arousing inspire intimacy and romance. “We turned on one another deep, drowned gazes, and exchanged a kiss that reduced my bones to rubber and my brain to gruel.” ~Peter De Vries. The Sweet Life comes with relishing pleasures.

Passion – The Wine, Champagne, Sparkling Cider
This champagne and the food and drink you share represents the desire for one another which bonds two hearts for a lifetime through intensity, feeling, gratitude, festivity and blessings. “Wine gives courage and makes men apt for passion.” ~Ovid. We toast the caring heart with its ability for sadness, joy, laughter and awe. We drink to each other, we nourish each other and passion is fed for a lifetime.

Creativity – The Music
The music you play is a symbol of the food of love which sparkles in each soul as the art of living. You design your marriage with your taste for the senses, the shared times, private talks and personal space. “… Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. You create your relationship with the art of playful endearments, happy surprises, intimate gifts, aesthetic poetry, beautiful moments and private getaways.

Spirit – The Candles
Lighting these candles is a symbol of the fire between twin souls which is everlasting and which makes them, united, a light unto the world. The spirit of gratitude, forgiveness, devotion, courage and joy drive the power of your desire for each other and your marriage. “Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavour.” ~Jean Paul Sartre. Together, you provide spiritual gifts for the earth such as the children of your minds and bodies and the service of your combined spirits. The spirit of your marriage shines wherever you travel in life’s journeys.

The Seven Symbols of Marriage by Heather Carlile

Nondenominational Wedding Vows

The Wedding Ceremony of
Bride and Groom
Friday, June 8, 2007

Prelude (music before wedding)  -
Processional (entrance music for everyone but bride) -
Bride’s Processional (music) -
During ceremony -  (at the couples’ discretion) Meditation
Recessional -
Officiator, Groom and attendants take the stage.
Bride enters attended by Father, Mother, Bridesmaids.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here in the presence of God and this company, to join together bride and groom in holy matrimony. They have not come here to make a new promise for they have already done that long ago in their souls. They come here to exchange the vows of marriage surrounded by the fellowship of their community.

This man and this woman have come here today to make public their commitment; to give notice to their promise; to say again their heart’s covenant out loud and in your presence. It is their wish that we will all come to participate in their wedding and thus make it even more meaningful. Today, through this ceremony and their pledges to each other, these two souls proclaim, in our company, the sacred bond between them which was formed before they met and which is forever.

It is the hope of groom and bride that this ritual of their wedding may bring us all closer. If you are here with a spouse, a partner or a longing, may this ceremony be a reminder, a re-dedication of your own devotion to a loving bond.

If any here can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak, or else forever hold their peace.

BLESSING THE CEREMONY

Shall we turn within to bless this sacred event.

Groom and bride, the spirit of love is blessing you now with a new life, with gratitude for what is the past and to live freely and joyously in the presence of friendship and love—here and now and for all time to come.

The truth and purity of such love awakens your inner passion to live your lives with a greater awareness of who you really are—divine spirits with limitless strength, wisdom and loving-kindness. As you receive the love of the other more and more each day, you discover it is the beauty and aliveness of the infinite loving spirit which naturally nourishes your own soul.

You were born to unite at this time, to honor, respect and unconditionally love each other. This joining of your two souls as husband and wife is a sacred trust, which is strengthened and renewed by the intention to behold the best in each other. It also asks that you individually turn within to the Spirit of God—to connect with your deepest source of strength, understanding and compassion.

Your love brings all of us here today to share in the beauty and light of your goodness. Whenever we see you or think of you we will recognize the deep and lasting commitment you have made to one another. We rejoice with you in this glorious expression of love!

In a moment of silence we thank God for the renewing, inspiring power of love which always brings us closer to truth and happiness.

And so it is. Amen.

THIS MARRIAGE

Groom and bride, You have found together the daily renewal of delight in completing each other. Your years as romantic best friends have become an eternal wedding between man and woman. You are married by what is said here today, and by your loving devotion to each other. All of us gathered here are joyful witnesses.

The estate of wedlock is a holy one, not to be entered into lightly, and only under the guidance of wisdom, sincerity and love. It is for those who understand the humility, courage and kindness—beyond the mere respect necessary to live together in harmony over decades. The spirit of each reaches more deeply, for the sake of honoring and expanding the other.

Insert quote(s).

May this marriage continuously evolve into newness through the universal seasons and cycles by a daring, unswerving commitment to their souls’ highest cause and craving: to love each other ever more forever.

THE VOWS

Groom and bride, today your separate lives with their individual memories, desires, talents and dreams are merged to become one marriage in one home.

Will you please join hands . . .

Do you,  groom, promise to love bride, and to stand by her through difficulties—with gentleness, tolerance, forgiveness and charity; and do you promise to bring her your devotion, passion, playfulness and joy; and to accept her love and forgiveness, remaining faithful to her alone?

GROOM: “I DO.”

Do you, bride, promise to love groom, and to stand by him through difficulties—with gentleness, tolerance, forgiveness and charity; and do you promise to bring him your devotion, passion, playfulness and joy; and to accept his love and forgiveness, remaining faithful to him alone?

BRIDE: “I DO.”

Groom, repeat after me . . .
“I, groom, take you bride, to be my wife;
to have and to hold, from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.”

Bride, repeat after me . . .
“I, bride, take you groom, to be my husband;
to have and to hold, from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.”

THE EXCHANGING OF RINGS

To the GROOM:
What token do you give?

Bless this ring that he who gives it, and that she who wears it may be ever reminded that they share the greatest privilege of humanity: to love and to be loved.

The circle of gold symbolizes the endless love between you. As such, groom, you will now place this ring on her finger and repeat after me . . ..

“With this ring, I thee wed. The gold encircles your finger as my protection, and my arms embrace your femininity. As a token of our faithfulness, each to the other, I place it now upon your hand. May this ring go everywhere with you, as a symbol of my love for you, surrounding and enfolding you always.”

To the BRIDE:
What token do you give?

Bless this ring that she who gives it, and that he who wears it may be ever reminded that they share the greatest privilege of humanity: to love and to be loved.

As such, bride, you will now place this ring on his finger and repeat after me . . .

“With this ring, I thee wed. The gold encircles your finger as my adoration, and my arms embrace your masculinity. As a token of our faithfulness, each to the other, I place it now upon your hand. May this ring go everywhere with you, as a symbol of my love for you, surrounding and enfolding you always.”

Groom and bride recognize that only a couple can administer the sacrament of marriage to each other, and only a couple can sanctify it. Neither a church, nor any power vested in me, can grant me the authority to declare what only these two hearts can declare, and what only these two souls can make real.

And so now, inasmuch as you, groom and bride, have announced the truths that are already written in your hearts, and have witnessed the same in the presence of this company and the One Living Spirit, have given and received the wedding rings, we observe fully that you have declared yourselves to be husband and wife.

PRAYER BLESSING FOR THE MARRIAGE

Let us pray . . . .

Beloved Holy Spirit,

Out of this whole world, two souls have found each other. Their destinies shall now be woven into one design and their perils and their joys shall not be known apart.  We ask that our voices be used by the Holy Spirit to bring your blessings to groom and bride. We ask that your spiritual wisdom and guidance be with them as they honor the new level of commitment which they have now made to each other and their marriage. May a host of angels celebrate with us now and may angels always surround, protect and bless these precious souls as they serve you each in their own way and in partnership.

For those who are here to witness, we together pray that new awareness and understanding be granted to each of us. May we all be touched by the blessings of your love and wisdom.

Groom and bride, we bless your home. May it be a place of happiness for all who enter it; a place where the old and the young are renewed in each other’s company, a place for growing and a place for sharing, a place for music and a place for laughter, a place for reverence and a place for love.

Groom and bride, we bless your relationship. May you always be full to overflowing with the Infinite Love of Spirit that you are renewed and inspired, encouraged and excited. May your forgiveness be instant and your encouragement constant.

Groom and bride, we bless your life as husband and wife. May the beauty and the bounty of your love for one another constantly enrich those who are nearest to you. May your service to the world be fulfilling and fruitful. May your marriage be the ultimate blessing as you journey through the adventures of life as romantic best friends. And may your days be good, and long upon this Earth.

With this prayer, we gathered here, pledge never to forget that, united, your love and our love uplifts the world.

Amen and amen.

THE PRONOUNCEMENT

Today is a day of celebration: may I present Mr. and Mrs. -, I now pronounce you husband and wife and the groom may kiss the bride!

Recessional and Exuent!

Vows edited by Heather Carlile.

I provide them here in case you or a loved one would like to use them!