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Readings within a wedding ceremony are the best way to show what love and commitment mean to you as a couple beginning your journey of marriage. It also showcases your personality to your family, friends, and loved ones.
Today, a wedding reading can range from anything including a romantic poem, a bible verse about love, or even a funny one from a film or a television show. They are not only personal to the couple but are also heart-warming and inspirational to all those present at the ceremony.
Whether wise, humorous, romantic, religious, spiritual, or unconventional, there is a Reading that is perfect for any kind of couple out there for their special day. Here is a list of Readings that may suit your tastes best for your wedding day.
How to choose a Wedding Reading
The first thing to do when choosing a reading for the wedding is what kind of reading would fit the couple. Discuss and decide whether this would be secular, religious, modern or something else.
When in doubt, ask your Officiant! If a professional officiant has been chosen, they have a lot of experience in conducting weddings and may have several tips if not readings under their repertoire which are just the right fit for the couple. Don’t be shy to ask for help.
The number of readings in the ceremony must be decided. Although there are many good readings that the couple would like at their wedding, according to experts, it is best to have either one or a maximum of two readings. If the couple want to involve multiple people in performing their reading, each person may speak an extract of one reading.
Best Person to Perform the Reading at Your Ceremony
Wedding readings are usually read by a close family member or an important friend at the end of the processional after the officiant has done all introductions and right before the wedding vows.
When choosing the person who will perform the Reading, ensure that they are comfortable and confident in taking on the role and those who can speak in front of an audience as it is an important one for your ceremony. The person may also explain why the reading is meaningful to the couple.
Now without further ado, let’s dive into some of the best Wedding Readings.
Romantic and Modern Readings
1. Love by Bob Marley
“She’s not perfect – you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together – but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold on to her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break – her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyse and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”
2. Maya Angelou on Love and Liberation
“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love because that liberates.
Love liberates.
It doesn’t just hold – that’s ego.
Love liberates.
It doesn’t bind.
Love says, ‘I love you.
I love you if you’re in China.
I love you if you’re across town.
I love you if you’re in Harlem.
I love you.
I would like to be near you.
I’d like to have your arms around me.
I’d like to hear your voice in my ear.
But that’s not possible now, so I love you.
Go.”
3. Justice Anthony Kennedy in SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Ruling
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.”
4. Love is Friendship Caught Fire by Laura Hendricks
“Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing, and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times.
It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past.
It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals.
If you have love in your life, any kind of love, it can make up for a great many things you lack.
If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.
Love is friendship caught fire.”
5. There Should Be a Word
“There should be a word
for the sound when we
speak at the same
time
and the letters chink against
each other,
spilling the wine that was in
the glasses.
There should be a word for the word
that never forms,
the sounds that don’t
echo and
the syllables that are
stuck together with bad glue.
But there isn’t.
So
I love you
will have to do.”
6. This Day I Married My Best Friend
“This day I married my best friend.
The one I laugh with as we share life’s wonderous zest,
As we find new enjoyments and experience all that’s best.
The one I live for because the world seems brighter,
As our happy times are better and our burdens feel much lighter.
The one I love with every fibre of my soul.
We used to feel vaguely incomplete, now together we are whole.”
7. A Good Wedding Cake by Anon
“4Lb of love
1/2Lb of sweet temper
1Lb of butter of youth
1Lb of blindness of faults
1Lb of pounded wit
1Lb of good humour
2Lbs of sweet argument
1 Pint of rippling laughter
1 Wine glass of common sense
A dash of modesty
Put the love, good looks and a sweet temper into a well-furnished house. Beat the butter of youth into a cream and mix well together with the blindness of faults. Stir the pounded wit and good humour into the sweet argument, then add the rippling laughter and common sense. Work the whole together until everything is well mixed and bake gently for ever.”
Short Yet Sweet Readings
1. A.A Milne in Winnie the Pooh
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”
“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you.”
2. Nicholas Sparks in The Notebook
“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.”
3. Lisa Kleypas in Blue-Eyed Devil
“I no longer believed in the idea of soulmates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.”
4. William Butler Yeats
“I think a man and woman should choose each other for life, for the simple reason that a long life with all its accidents is barely enough time for a man and woman to understand each other. And to understand is to love.”
5. Cormac McCarthy in The Road
“Lying under such a myriad of stars.
The sea’s black horizon.
He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again.
When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.”
6. Just Kids by Patti Smith
“”Where does it all lead? What will become of us?
These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed.
It leads to each other. We become ourselves…
“What will happen to us?” I asked. “There will always be us,” he answered.”
7. Always by Lang Leav
“You were you
and I was I;
we were two
before our time
I was yours,
before I knew
and you have always
been mine too.”
8. Some Things Go Together by Charlotte Zolotow
“Pairs of things that go together.
Pigeons with park
Stars with dark
Sand with sea
and you with me.
… Hats with heads
Pillows with beds
Sky with blue
and me with you.”
9. Recipe for Love by Anon
“Put the love, good looks, and sweet temper into a well-furnished house. Beat the butter of youth to a cream, and mix well together with the blindness of faults.
Stir the pounded wit and good humor into the sweet argument, then add the rippling laughter and common sense. Work the whole together until everything is well mixed and bake gently forever.”
10. Albert Einstein on Relativity
“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”
From Pop-Culture – Novels, Songs, Films, and Shows
1. Monica from FRIENDS
“For so long I wondered if I would ever find my prince, my soulmate. Then three years ago, at another wedding, I turned to a friend for comfort. And instead, I found everything that I’d ever been looking for my whole life. And now here we are with our future before us, and I only want to spend it with you, my prince, my soulmate, my friend.”
2. Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre
“I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely; a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
3. Tim Burton in The Nightmare Before Christmas
“My dearest friend, if you don’t mind
I’d like to join you by your side
Where we can gaze into the stars
And sit together, now and forever
For it is plain as anyone can see
We’re simply meant to be.”
4. Frozen
“We’re not saying you can change them, ‘cuz people don’t really change
We’re only saying that love’s a force that’s powerful and strange
People make bad choices if they’re mad, or scared, or stressed
Throw a little love their way (throw a little love their way) and you’ll bring out their best
True love brings out their best!”
5. Mirrors by Justin Timberlake
“Cause I don’t wanna lose you now, I’m looking right at the other half of me. The vacancy that sat in my heart, Is a space that now you hold. Show me how to fight for now, And I’ll tell you, baby, it was easy, Coming back into you once I figured it out. You were right here all along. It’s like you’re my mirror. My mirror staring back at me. I couldn’t get any bigger, With anyone else beside me. And now it’s clear as this promise, That we’re making two reflections into one. Cause it’s like you’re my mirror My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me.”
6. When Harry Met Sally
“I love that you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
7. Carrie’s Poem from Sex and the City
“His hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile
He said she was what was missing
She said instantly she knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was “I do””
8. J.R.R Tolkien in Lord of the Rings – The Ent and The Ent Wife
“When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labor past;
I’ll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.”
9. Game of Thrones
“As you are the Moon of his life, he shall be your Sun and Stars. Your love shall be as ever present as those two celestial bodies…even though they are sometimes hidden from one another’s sight. Your love will be the guiding force that charts the course of your tomorrows, holds your world together in difficult times, and will make life itself shine bolder and brighter than we human beings have a right to dream of.”
10. The Office
“Listen, no matter what happens, you gotta forget about all the other stuff. You gotta forget about logic and fear and doubt. You just gotta do everything you can to get to the one woman who’s gonna make all this worth it. At the end of the day, you gotta jump.”
11. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
“Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to great places! You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the COUPLE who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there in the wide-open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
OH! THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that life’s a great balancing act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
So… be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting.
So… get on your way!”
Poem Readings
1. This Marriage by Rumi
“May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our everyday a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.”
2. Love Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.”
3. On Marriage by Khalil Gibran
“You were born together, and together you shall be forever more.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Yes, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be
alone – even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not in each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the Cyprus grow not in each other’s shadows”
4. A Vow by Wendy Cope
“I cannot promise never to be angry;
I cannot promise always to be kind.
You know what you’re taking on, my darling
It’s only at the start that love is blind.
And yet I’m still the one you want to be with
And you’re the one for me – of that I’m sure.
You’re my closest friend, my favourite person,
The lover and the home I’ve waited for.
I cannot promise that I will deserve you
From this day on. I hope to pass that test.
I love you, and I want to make you happy.
I promise I will do my very best.”
5. Blessings for a Marriage by James Billet Freeman
“May your marriage bring you
all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring,
and may life grant you also patience,
tolerance, and understanding.
May you always need one another –
not so much to fill your emptiness
as to help you to know your fullness.
A mountain needs a valley to be complete;
the valley does not make the mountain less,
but more; and the valley is more a valley
because it has a mountain towering over it.
So let it be with you and you.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another,
and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise,
often say, “I love you!”
and take no notice of small faults.
If you have quarrels that push you apart,
may both of you hope to have good sense enough
to take the first step back.
May you enter into the mystery
which is the awareness of one another’s presence –
no more physical than spiritual,
warm and near when you are side by side,
and warm and near when you are in separate rooms
or even distant cities.
May you have happiness,
and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love,
and may you find it loving one another.”
Humorous Readings
1. Yes, I’ll Marry you My Dear by Pam Ayres
“Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear, and here’s the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed, when the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking, and it’s creepy and it’s late,
I hand you the torch to see, and you investigate.
Yes I’ll marry you, my dear, you may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble drier goes, it’s you that has to mend it.
You have to face the neighbour, should our Labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me, it’s you that has to whack him.
Yes I’ll marry you, you’re virile and you’re lean,
My house is like a pigsty, you can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner, which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas, you can cook it every night!
It’s you who work the drill, and put up curtain track,
And when I’ve got PMT, it’s you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages, but none of them for you,
And so before you see the light, I do, I do, I do!”
2. The Giraffe and the Monkey by Daniel Thompson
“Wherever we go
Whatever we do
Whenever there’s me
I hope that there’s you.
Now Money is Funny, it can make people odd.
You forget to be happy, and you live for your job
And fashion, is a passion, beset with a flaw
You can dress to excess, but you’ll always need more
And a muscle toned body, may sound like a dream
But no body is better, than chocolate ice cream
What I’m trying to say, is that happiness grows
Not through your wages, or body or clothes
But in laughter and love, and in sharing your life.
In the arms of another as husband and wife.
So when you find someone who’s weird just like you
Who laughs when you’re stupid and who makes you laugh too.
When you sit on the sofa, not hiding your flaws.
As imperfectly perfect, as the hand that holds yours.
When the fortune of kings, or purse of a beggar.
Won’t change how it feels, just being together.
When a cuddle and cuppa is all that you need….
Well then…
you’ve found something quite special indeed.
Wherever we go
Whatever we do
Whenever there’s me
I hope that there’s you.”
3. How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali
“First of all, it’s a big responsibility,
especially in a city like (your city).*
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you’re walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain’t no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?
On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breathes
and makes funny noises.
Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.
It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.
Love doesn’t like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.
Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.
Love makes messes.
Love leaves you little surprises here and there.
Love needs lots of cleaning up after.
Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.
Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper
and swat love on the nose,
not so much to cause pain,
just to let love know Don’t you ever do that again!
Sometimes love just wants to go out for a nice long walk.
Because love loves exercise. It will run you around the block
and leave you panting, breathless. Pull you in different directions
at once, or wind itself around and around you
until you’re all wound up and you cannot move.
But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.
Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.”
4. To My Valentine by Ogden Nash
“More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That’s how much I love you.
I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.
As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That’s how much you I love.
I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.
I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths,
That’s how you’re loved by me.”
5. A Word to Husbands by Ogden Nash
“To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong admit it;
Whenever you’re right shut up.”
6. I Rely on you by Hovis Presley
“I rely on you like a Skoda needs suspension, like the aged need a pension, like a trampoline needs tension, like a bungee jump needs apprehension.
I rely on you like a camera needs a shutter, like a gambler needs a flutter, like a golfer needs a putter, like a buttered scone involves some butter.
I rely on you like an acrobat needs ice cool nerve, like a hairpin needs a drastic curve, like an HGV needs endless derv, like an outside left needs a body swerve.
I rely on you like a handyman needs pliers, like an auctioneer needs buyers, like a laundromat needs driers, like The Good Life needed Richard Briers.
I rely on you like a water vole needs water, like a brick outhouse needs mortar, like a lemming to the slaughter, Ryan’s just Ryan without his daughter. I rely on you.”
Religious Readings
1. Romans 12:9-16
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.”
2. Corinthians 13:4-12
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
3. Song of Solomon 8:6-7
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”
4. Malachi 2:14-15
“But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”
5. Ecclesiastes 4:9
“Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labour: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?”
6. Genesis 1:27-28
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Classical Readings
1. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Not lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long as lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
2. Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool,
though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come;
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
3. Margery Williams in The Velveteen Rabbit
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nanna came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
4. The Art of Marriage by Wilfred Arlan 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.”
5. We are Made One With What We Touch and See by Oscar Wilde
“We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!”
Wrapping Up
As seen above, a Wedding reading can be anything that either describes what one feels towards their partner or even what they feel about love and marriage whether traditional, religious, or otherwise. The ideal ones showcase the journey to the couple’s special day. Always remember to choose the reading that reflects the personality of the couple. The wedding ceremony can be customized even further by choosing the perfect reading that is personally relatable to the couple and resonates with them. The reading can also have the personal touch if it is written by the couple or by someone close to them.
