Readings

In This Section

Exchange of Vows
Blessing of Rings
Exchange of Rings
Readings
Rituals
Blessing of the Marriage
Honoring Loved Ones

The Groom's Grandmother reading "The Art of Marriage" by Wilferd Peterson June 16, 2010 Photo Courtesy Wendy Fisher Art & Photography

One note of caution! If you include more than one reading try to keep one or both on the short side. I encourage couples to refrain from including more than two. Long readings or too many readings are a great way to hypnotize your guests, and I suspect that's not the goal.

FOUNDATIONS OF MARRIAGE

~ Regina Hill ~

Love, trust, and forgiveness are the foundations of marriage. In marriage, many days will bring happiness, while other days may be sad. But together, two hearts can overcome everything...In marriage, all of the moments won't be exciting or romantic, and sometimes worries and anxiety will be overwhelming. But together, two hearts that accept will find comfort together. Recollections of past joys, pains, and shared feelings will be the glue that holds everything together during even the worst and most insecure moments. Reaching out to each other as a friend, and becoming the confidant and companion that the other one needs, is the true magic and beauty of any two people together. It's inspiring in each other a dream or a feeling, and having faith in each other and not giving up... even when all the odds say to quit. It's allowing each other to be vulnerable, to be himself or herself, even when the opinions or thoughts aren't in total agreement or exactly what you'd like them to be. It's getting involved and showing interest in each other, really listening and being available, the way any best friend should be. Exactly three things need to be remembered in a marriage if it is to be a mutual bond of sharing, caring, and loving throughout life: love, trust, and forgiveness.

WE NEED ONE ANOTHER

~ George E. Odell ~

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.

We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.

We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.

We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.

We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs. We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure and stand again.

We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.

 

FALLING

~ Robert Hardy ~

You already know about love. You fall in love. Falling is easy.

Maybe you don’t see it coming. Maybe you brace yourself against the wind in the door,

see the earth circling below and jump. Falling is easy. It feels like flight.

You feel your kinship with clouds, with light, stuff of stars, atoms that float and fall,

meteors, stars that still glow with the start of everything.

You raise your arms like wings. Butterfly or belly-flop.

You feel the earth expanding--don’t look down. Reach for the cord.

Falling is easy. But is this love or gravity? Pull the cord.

Yes--love blossoms from the weight you carry, the question, the tug at your heart.

The parachute pops like a cork. Now you float in the arms of the atmosphere,

milkweed floss, dandelion seed, no longer afraid to take root in the earth--

but still floating awhile, ecstasy and trust,

your high-altitude heart settling back into a steadier beat,

the tilt of the earth, seasons and days.

But here you are floating--buoyed by invitations and arrangements.

Now you look down. The ground looms like a date, circled for landing.

The fields look like RSVPs. Your feet touch.

The parachute falls around you like a wedding dress.

You’ve landed together. Dance while the earth steadies beneath your feet.

Hold each other up. Now you will walk together in ordinary days.

Your parachute may become a maternity dress,

a mortgage, a tissue for your tears.

It may be divided into diapers, water-proof sheets,

a layette, stories to tell your grandchildren.

Days may come when you forget how it felt to float.

But still this moment of landing lives inside you,

when the touch of the ground felt like a vow--

I will always be there. I will catch you if you fall.

MARRIAGE JOINS TWO PEOPLE IN THE CIRCLE OF ITS LOVE
~ By Edmund O'Neill ~

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:
O, no! It is an ever-fix'd 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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

ART OF MARRIAGE
~ By Wilferd A. Peterson. ~

A good marriage must be created.

In the 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 having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is standing together and facing the world.....

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right person.

It is being the right partner.

FROM A GIFT FROM THE SEA 

~by Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

One recognizes the truth of Saint Exupery's line: Love does not consist in gazing at each other. But in looking outward together in the same direction. For in fact, man and woman are not only looking outward in the same direction, they are working outward. Here one forms ties, roots, a firm base....Here one makes oneself part of the community of men, of human society. Here the bonds of marriage are formed. For marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually, in this stage, many bonds, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. The web is fashioned of love. Yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow-growing devotion and, playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts; of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language too, a knowledge of likes and dislikes, of habits and reactions, both physical and mental. It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE
~ By Christopher Marlowe ~

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

WHY MARRIAGE? 

~by Mari Nichols~

Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...

Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...

Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold...

Because marriage means opportunity
To grow in love in friendship...

Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements...

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole...

Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me,
I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage...

Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

I wanna make you smile,
Whenever you're sad.
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad.
All I wanna do,
Is grow old with you.
I'll get you medicine,
When your tummy aches.
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks.
Oh it could be so nice,
Growin' old with you.
I'll miss you, kiss you,
Give you my coat when you are cold.
Need you, feed you.
Even let you hold the remote control.
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink.
Put you to bed when you've had too much to drink.
Oh I could be the man,
Who grows old with you.
I wanna grow old with you.


 

I WANNA BE YOURS

~John Cooper Clark~

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours


I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotion


NO MISTAKE

~Martha Sims~

I know that you were made for me
And I was made for you
A wise old owl up in a tree
Told me this was true
I asked him only yesterday
If I should marry you
He answered – ‘I can safely say
You’re not a twit to woo.’

(The pun in the last line tends to sail over American heads. Works better with the British crowd.)

CORINTHIANS 13: 4-8

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

LOVE

~ Chief Dan George ~

Love is something that you and I must have.  We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it.  We must have it because without it we become faint and weak.

Without love our self- esteem weakens.  Without it our courage fails.  Without love we can no longer look confidently at the world.  We turn inward and begin to feed on our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves.

With love we are creative. With love we march tirelessly.  With love and with love alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.

THE APACHE WEDDING PRAYER

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be
shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be
warmth to the other.

Now there is no more lonliness,
for each of you will be
companion to the other.

Now you are two bodies,
but there is only one
life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place,
to enter into the days
of your togetherness.

And may your days
be good and long
upon the earth.

A WEDDING WISH

All earthly goods I wish thee.
All that's good for thee and thine
And still, not only earthly
But all we know to be divine.

May earth and heaven mingle
May earth and heaven be one
All through your earthly journey
Till sets your earthly sun.

In Sunshine and in shadow
Through dancing and in song
May heaven bless your union
Throughout your whole life long.

THE PROPHET 

~ by Kahil Gibran ~

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.

LOVE IS ENOUGH
~by William Morris~

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, 
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover 
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, 
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder 
And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass'd over, 
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter; 
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter 
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover. 
 

I CHING

When two people are at one
in their inmost hearts,
they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.
And when two people understand each other
in their inmost hearts,
their words are sweet and strong,
like the fragrance of orchids.

From "A NATURAL HISTORY OF LOVE"
~Diane Ackerman~

"Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful. It has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love's spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots spreading into deep and mysterious days. The heart is a living museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving, and being loved."
 

From "KNOW THYSELF, KNOW THYSELF MORE DEEPLY"
~D.H. Lawrence~

"Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,
love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock
molten, yet dense and permanent.
Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.
And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.
Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths
out of sight, in the deep living heart."

Do you have a favorite song? Often song lyrics make lovely readings during a wedding ceremony. You needn't be limited to scripture and poetry. Passages from both fiction and non-fiction prose can be used. Here are a few more sites you can browse for ideas.

From "UNION"
~Robert Fulghum~

"You 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 promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks - all those sentences that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will and you will and we will”- those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe”- and 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 one another, “ You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed- well, I meant it all, every word.” Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another- acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this- is my husband, this- is my wife "


From "CORELLI'S MANDOLIN"
~Louise De Bernieres!

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have 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."
 

From "THE STRENGTH TO LOVE"
~Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.~

"The meaning of love is not to be confused with some sentimental outpouring. Love is something much more than emotional bosh…An overflowing love which seeks nothing in return,[agape] is the love of God operating in the human heart…Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force, so beautifully exemplified in the life of our Christ, is the most potent instrument available in mankind's quest for peace and security…The great military leaders of the past have gone, and their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing."

 

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