READINGS, WORDS & POEMS FOR WEDDINGS

LOVE IS A VERB BY BELL HOOKS [excerpt]

What is love? Love is a Verb.

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Your wedding ceremony is a threshold and in this threshold you are compass setting for your future - chose wisely, kindly and honestly - what are you committing to? Let your readings echo your hearts compass.

Are there poems from your ancestral lands? [For me that would be Scotland, Wales or Ireland]. Are there films you love and quote from? Are there books you delight in? Or perhaps one of these rings true to you and yours?

These offerings are a starting point - song lyrics also make great poems - and / or maybe you or someone you know would write one…? Happy reading, feeling, finding!

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I WANT A LOVE THAT DOESN’T BREAK BY yung pueblo

I want a love that doesn't break
one that gives me water
when I am consumed by fire
one that offers me shelter
when I am lose
one that helps me see
that the hero
I am looking for
is me.

TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL 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.

All I Know About Love by Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I've learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It's not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it's what they mean.
Somebody's got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn't want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It's not two broken halves becoming one.
It's the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else's love, nobody else's marriage, is like yours,
and it's a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that's all I know about love.

Ian Duhig - BRIDLED VOWS

I will be faithful to you, I do vow 

but not until the seas have all run dry 

etcetera: although I mean it now, 

I'm not a prophet and I will not lie.

To be your perfect wife, I could not swear;

I'll love, yes; honour (maybe); won't obey,

but will co-operate if you will care

as much as you are seeming to today.

I'll do my best to be your better half,

but I don't have the patience of a saint;

not with you, at you I may sometimes laugh,

and snap too, though I'll try to learn restraint.

We might work out: no blame if we do not.

With all my heart, I think it's worth a shot.

Ann Gray - LOVE LISTEN

Let's love, listen, take time

when time is all we have. 

Let's be unafraid to be kind,

learn to disregard the bad

if the good outweighs it daily.

Let's make a gift of silence, 

the day's hushing into dark,

and when we hold each other

let's always be astonished

we are where we want to be.

Let's hope to age together,

but if we can't, let's promise now

to remember how we shone 

when we were at our best,

when we were most ourselves.

Wendy Cope - A VOW

I cannot promise never to be angry;

I cannot promise always to be kind.

You know what you are 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 are 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.

Liz Lochhead - VOW: THE SIMPLEST, HARDEST AND THE TRUEST THING

One: We live in love, so finally are come today

(beyond the gladrags and the sweet bouquet

beyond cake or ring or all this fuss)

to this, the simplest and the truest thing for us.

Other: If you can say, my love – and hand on heart – 

I will love you until death do us part –

One: – Hand on heart,

I will love you till death do us part.

Other: Then look me in my eyes – and now!

and here! – this kiss we kiss shall be our vow.

Imtiaz Dharker - I TAKE

I take

your body where love takes place

I take

your mouth where my life takes shape

I take

your breath which makes my space

I take

you as you are, for good

I take

you with open arms, to have

I take

you to have

and to hold but not to hold

too hard

I take

you for farther for closer

for sooner for later

till

till

death tries to get us

and we laugh and we stall

and we tell it to call us some other

fine day because we are busy today

taking our tea with buttered

hope and

I take

thee

I take

thee

Carol Ann Duffy- RINGS

for both to say

I might have raised your hand to the sky

to give you the ring surrounding the moon

or looked to twin the rings of your eyes

with mine

or added a ring to the rings of a tree

by forming a handheld circle with you, thee,

or walked with you

where a ring of church-bells,

looped the fields,

or kissed a lipstick ring on your cheek,

a pressed flower,

or met with you

in the ring of an hour,

and another hour . . .

I might

have opened your palm to the weather, turned, turned,

till your fingers were ringed in rain

or held you close,

they were playing our song,

in the ring of a slow dance

or carved our names

in the rough ring of a heart

or heard the ring of an owl's hoot

as we headed home in the dark

or the ring, first thing,

of chorussing birds

waking the house

or given the ring of a boat, rowing the lake,

or the ring of swans, monogamous, two,

or the watery rings made by the fish

as they leaped and splashed

or the ring of the sun's reflection there . . .

I might have tied 

a blade of grass,

a green ring for your finger,

or told you the ring of a sonnet by heart

or brought you a lichen ring,

found on a warm wall,

or given a ring of ice in winter

or in the snow

sung with you the five gold rings of a carol

or stolen a ring of your hair

or whispered the word in your ear

that brought us here,

where nothing and no one is wrong, 

and therefore I give you this ring.

Michael Longley - FOR A WEDDING

Let wild birds call the banns

merlins from the hillside

sanderlings from the waves

whimbrels with seven notes

nightingales from the wood

from the treetops rooks

from your own back garden

blue tit, robin, wren.

'I give you this bouquet

of saxifrage sneezewort

spurge ragged robin

asphodel lords-and-ladies.'

'For your buttonhole I

have braided loosestrife

and self-heal and eyebright

and speedwell and speedwell.'

Andrew Motion - VOW

I make this vow today. I stand here now

Returning you what you gave me to give.

Myself complete. Myself complete in you.

My life I give, that you gave me to give.

Clare Shaw - VOW

Say yes.

That word on your lips

is a kiss;

is a promise already made.

We made it.

Love did not turn from hurt

or hard work.

When lights failed, it did not switch off.

When love had no road,

we willingly built it.

We shouldered its stones

and its dirt. So thankfully

there are days like this when it's easy.

When we open our mouths

and the words flood in.

Put the word of your hand

in mine.

We have learnt to hold to each other

when nothing was given by right;

how love will insist

with its ache; with its first painful

tug on the guts;

its snake in the nest of the ribs;

the bomb in the chest;

in the Y of the thighs; the red, red

red sun of it, rising.

How love must, at all costs,

be answered. We have answered

and so have a million before us

and each of their names is a vow.

So now I can tell you, quite simply

you are the house I will live in:

there is no good reason

to move. Good earth,

you are home, stone, sun,

all my countries. Vital to me

as the light. You are it

and I am asking.

Say yes.

Love opens a door

then slams it. It does.

It loses its touch and its looks.

But love needs its fury.

We have fought

and when times make it necessary,

we will again. When night draws in,

we won't forget

how once the streets ran wet with light

and love. Like blood. They will again.

But for now,

we make our promises gently.

This extraordinary day we have made.

Listen –

the birds in their ordinary heaven.

Tonight the sky will blaze

with stars. Today, my love,

rooms bloom with flowers.

Say yes.

The sky is ours.

John Agard - NUPTIALS

River, be their teacher,

that together they may turn

their future highs and lows

into one hopeful flow

Two opposite shores

feeding from a single source.

Mountain, be their milestone,

that hand in hand they rise above

familiarity's worn tracks

into horizons of their own

Two separate footpaths

dreaming of a common peak.

Birdsong, be their mantra,

that down the frail aisles of their days,

their twilight hearts twitter morning

and their dreams prove branch enough.

Rachael Boast - LOVER'S KNOT 

From this day forwards

we'll push the boat out, let it body us,

take us to a place as much mine as yours, 

past the double oxbow 

where the blossoms fall, and together 

we'll learn the ropes: how to pull you in,

how to let you go; let you be as you are, 

and break the wave of my known world.

In a covenant of above and below, 

may we be confluent with each changing tide; 

our partnership both the anchor and the flow

for all the days of our lives.

Nick Drake - FROM THE SONG DYNASTY

The tale survives of two men 

Who fell in love "at first sight";

Who shared everything

In unbounded intimacy

Including the pillow

And the red embroidered coverlet

Which had been in the family

For generations.

Whether they had bad days,

Domestic arguments

Or inappropriate dreams

We do not know –

No doubt such burrs 

Were worked away by time

Polishing its story;

How they found each other

And lived together all their lives,

And died on the same day,

And were buried by the grieving town

On Mount Luofo's peak

With their pillow and red coverlet;

And a pine tree grew

Out of the grave

Like the character for longevity

And true love.

Such is the legend.

I like to think of them,

Pan Zhang and Wang Zhangxian,

In the crowd of well-wishers

Waiting in the April sunshine,

Yes, under white cherry trees

In full bloom, for us

Here and now, on this day

Early in the century,

In our very best suits and ties,

With our new rings

Growing warm on our fingers

Like keepsakes of light

Saved from the stars.

Alan Jenkins - THE SAILOR'S VOW

The life I spent so lavishly

Before we met

Seems one long night, in memory,

Of sea-fever and sea-fret –

Which led me here, to you, to this:

Our haven below decks.

You anchor me, I you, with a kiss 

(Though the coast is strewn with wrecks).

Jackie Kay - A LANG PROMISE

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,

if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the wurst,

ahint and afore whit will happen tae us:

blind in the present, eyes open to the furore,

unkempt or sharply dressed, suddenly puir or poorly,

peelie-wally or in fine feckle, beld or frosty, 

calm as a ghoul or in a feery-farry,

in dork December or in springy Spring weather,

doon by the Barrows; on the banks o' the Champs d'Elysees,

at mid-nicht, first licht, whether the mune

be roond or crescent, and ye be o' soond mind

or absent, I'll tak your trusty haund

and lead you over the haw – hame, ma darlin.

I'll carry ma lantern and daur defend ye agin ony enemy;

and whilst there is breath in me, I'll blaw it intae ye.

Fir ye are ma true luve, the bonnie face I see afore me; 

nichts I fall intae slumber, it's ye I see swimmingly – 

all yer guidness and blytheness, yer passion.

You'll be mine, noo, an' till the end o' time, 

ma bonnie lassie, I'll tak the full guid o' ye'

and gie it back, and gie it back tae ye:

a furst kiss, a lang promise: time's gowden ring.

Roger McGough - VOW

I vow to honour the commitment made this day

Which, unlike the flowers and the cake, 

Will not wither or decay. A promise, not to obey

But to respond joyfully, to forgive and to console,

For once incomplete, we now are whole.

I vow to bear in mind that if, at times

Things seem to go from bad to worse,

They also go from bad to better.

The lost purse is handed in, the letter

Contains wonderful news. Trains run on time,

Hurricanes run out of breath, floods subside,

And toast lands jam-side up.

And with this ring, my final vow:

To recall, whatever the future may bring,

The love I feel for you now.

Louis de Bernières - FROM CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN 

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 proclamation 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.

In One Another’s Souls by Rumi 

The moment I heard my first love story
I started looking for you,
not knowing how useless that was.
Lovers don’t meet somewhere along the way.
They’re in one another’s souls all along.

Other links:

https://www.rockmywedding.co.uk/wedding-poems

https://www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-planning/ceremony-and-reception/wedding-poems/#Popular