READINGS, WORDS & POEMS FOR WEDDINGS

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 or a paragraph from a beloved book- and / or maybe you or someone you know would write one…? Happy reading, feeling, finding!

ALL ABOUT LOVE BY BELL HOOKS

A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.

An Excerpt from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.

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 lost
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.

To Love Is Not To Possess by James Kavanaugh

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.

A reading now by Robert Fulghum called Union

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 commitments in an informal way.

All of 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” – 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 you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that 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, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few 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.

Roll on the Wedding! - Catherine Smith

The band has been booked, the cake has been made,

the photographer’s chosen, all bills have been paid.

The guests are decided, the menu too;

Something borrowed? Check! Ditto old and blue.

The stationery’s been ordered, along with the flowers,

favours are done after fiddling for hours.

The stag do’s a blur, same goes for the hen –

won’t be drinking that much in one sitting again!

The dress has been picked, accessories bought;

there’s nothing to schedule, no more to sort.

After endless to-do lists for over a year,

it’s time to relax; the big day is here!

Sitting here with my girls as our hair gets done,

I can’t help feeling lucky to have found ‘the one’ –

Just think, by lunchtime I’ll be his new wife!

Roll on the wedding, and our new married life!

DON’T HESITATE BY MARY OLIVER

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Wedding Poem by Whitney Hanson Poetry

They say that sometimes
love starts with a spark.

And that might be true,
but if I were to wish you a love,
I wouldn't wish fire for you.

You see, fire is powerful.
It burns bright and then it's gone.
It's beautiful and warm,
but it doesn't last long.

So instead of wishing you a love that burns,
I wish you a love like a river twists and turns.
It changes and it flows,
It is powerful and free.
But it consistently finds its way back to the sea.

And so like the water,
I hope your love is ever growing, ever changing.
I hope your love is powerful and free,
And may you always find each other,

Like a river finds the sea.

First Meeting by ASJ Tessimond

When I first met you, I knew I had come at last home,

Home after wandering, home after long puzzled searching.

Home, after long being wind-borne, wave-tossed, night-caught'

Long being lost.

And being with you as normal and needful and natural

As sleeping or walking; and I was myself, who had never

Been wholly myself; I was walking and talking and laughing

Easily at last.;

And the air was softer and sounds were sharper

And colours were brighter and sky was higher

And length was not measured by milestones and time was not measured by clocks....

And this end was a beginning...

And these words are the beginning of my thanks.

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.

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.

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.

I Love You by Roy Croft

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.

I love you for
the part of me that you bring out;
I love you for
putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
that you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful things
that no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,

Without a word,
Without a sign.

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

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.

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).

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.

Other links:

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

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