Readings for your ceremony
From the solemn to the humorous, including one or two readings in your ceremony is a way to include others while expressing thoughts and feelings that have been written in a way that’s far more eloquent than you might be able to write yourself. Anything’s possible, so as a starting point, here are some ideas.
Excerpt from The Irrational Season, Written by Madeleine L'Engle
But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.
To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected
The Art of Marriage, Written by Wilfred A. Peterson
Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created. In marriage the little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humour.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow old.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner; it is being the right partner.
Love Sonnet XVII, Written by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
In secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms,
But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
Risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
Therefore, I love you because I know no other way
Than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
From Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, written by Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like a volcano and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.
I Promise, written by Dorothy R Colgan
I promise to give you the best of myself
and to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person
and to realise that your interest, desires and needs
are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention
and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you,
to let you see through the windows of my world
into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you,
to be willing to face changes in order to keep
our relationship alive and exciting.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad,
with all I have to give and all I feel inside
in the only way I know how – completely and forever.
Now You Will Feel No Rain, trad. Apache song
Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to each other.
Now you will feel no solitude,
for each will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons,
but you will lead one life.
Go now to your dwelling place,
to begin the days of your life together.
And may your days be good and
long upon the earth.
Marriage Needs Time to Ripen, Written by Theodore Parker
It takes years to marry completely two hearts, even the most loving and well assorted. A happy wedlock is a falling in love. Young persons think love belongs to the brow-haired and crimson cheeked. So it does for its beginning. But the golden marriage is part of love which the bridal day knows nothing of.... Such a large and sweet fruit is marriage that is needs a long summer to ripen, and then a long winter to mellow and season it.
A Moment of Happiness or You and I, written by Rumi
Happy is the moment, when we sit together,
With two forms, two faces, yet one soul, you and I.
The flowers will bloom forever, The birds will sing their eternal song,
The moment we enter the garden, you and I.
The stars of heaven will come out to watch us,
And we will show them the light of a full moon, you and I.
No more thought of "you" and "I." Just the bliss of union
Joyous, alive, free of care, you and I.
All the bright-winged birds of heaven will swoop down to drink of our sweet water
The tears of our laughter, you and I.
What a miracle of fate, us sitting here. Even at the opposite ends of the earth
We would still be together, you and I.
Touched by an Angel, Written by Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
From The Gift From the Sea written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The Union - Written by Robert Fulghum
You may have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. All those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks- all those conversations that began with “when we’re married” and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” - all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and maybe” - all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things and more, are the real process of a wedding.
The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to each other, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, hoped and dreamed - well I meant it all, every word.”
Look at each other and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to each other - acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you will have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few short words that will take you across a threshold of life and things between you will never quite be the same. For after today you shall say to the world - This is my husband. This is my wife.
From Les Miserables - Written by Victor Hugo
You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.
The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love.
Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. And even loved in spite of ourselves.
Love is a Great Thing – Written by Thomas à Kempis
Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good.
By itself it makes that which is heavy light;
and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden;
it will not be kept back by anything low and mean;
It desires to be free from all worldly affections,
and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity,
or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble,
attempts what is above its strength,
pleads no excuse of impossibility.
It is therefore able to undertake all things,
and it completes many things and warrants them to take effect,
where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired;
though pressed it is not straightened;
though alarmed, it is not confounded;
but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, and manly.”
and, perhaps, the most commonly read verse in the history of weddings…
1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verses 1-13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
