OK, here it is! My 26 most popular ceremony readings for 2019.
Why 26 you ask? Well it started at 12, then grew from there.
Reading 1
Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines, and romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives.
For love is the creator of our favourite memories, and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. This radiance never fades; this mysterious and magical joy is the greatest treasure of all – one known only by those who love.
Reading 2
“About Love” – Unknown
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is LOVE.
Reading 3
“I Will Be Here” – Steven Curtis Chapman
If in the morning when you wake,
if the sun does not appear,
I will be here.
If in the dark we lose sight of love,
Hold my hand and have no fear,
I will be here.
I will be here,
when you feel like being quiet,
when you need to speak your mind I will listen.
Through the winning, losing, and trying we’ll be together,
and I will be here.
If in the morning when you wake,
if the future is unclear,
I will be here.
As sure as seasons were made for change,
our lifetimes were made for years,
I will be here.
I will be here,
and you can cry on my shoulder,
When the mirror tells us we’re older.
I will hold you, to watch you grow in beauty,
And tell you all the things you are to me.
We’ll be together and I will be here.
I will be true to the promises I’ve made,
To you and to the one who gave you to me.
I will be here.
Reading 4
Corinthians 12:31-13:8
Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them.
If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there~ are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous;
love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful.
Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
Love does not come to an end.
Reading 5
Love 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 belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Reading 6
“Today is the Day” – Unknown
Today is a day you will always remember
The greatest in anyone’s life
You start off the day just two people in love and end it as husband and wife.
It’s a brand new beginning, the start of a journey,
with moments to cherish and treasure
And although there’ll be times when you both disagree
These will surely be outweighed by pleasure.
You’ll have heard many words of advice in the past
When the secrets of marriage were spoken
But you know that the answers lie hidden inside
Where the bond of true love lies unbroken.
So, live happy together as lovers and friends
It’s the dawn of a new life for you
As you stand there together with love in your eyes
From the moment you whisper ‘I Do’.
And with luck, all your hopes and your dreams can be real
May success find its way to your hearts
Tomorrow can bring you the greatest of joys
But today is the day it all starts.
Reading 7
I want to be your friend
For ever and ever without break or decay.
When the hills are all flat
And the rivers are all dry,
When it lightens and thunders in winter,
When it rains and snows in summer,
When Heaven and Earth mingle
Not ’til then will I part from you.
Reading 8
Blessing For a Marriage – James Dillet 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 out 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 that 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.
Reading 9
Sonnet 116 – 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-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.
Reading 10
He’s not perfect – Bob Marley
He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect.
But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can.
He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break.
Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give.
Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there.
Love hard when there is love to be had.
Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
Reading 11
Wilfred A. Peterson, ‘Art of Marriage’
A good marriage must be created.
In a 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 all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is a standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in 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 expecting one to wear a halo or the other the wings of an angel.
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.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
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.
Reading 12
‘Cherokee Prayer’
God in heaven above, please protect the ones we love.
We honour all you created as we pledge our hearts and lives together.
We honour Mother Earth and ask for our marriage to be abundant and grow stronger through the seasons.
We honour fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts.
We honour wind and ask that we sail through life safe and calm as in our father’s arms – that it may never thirst for love.
We honour water, to clean and soothe our marriage – that it may never thirst for love.
All the forces of the universe you created, we pray for harmony and true happiness as we forever grow young together.
Amen.
Reading 13
Commitment Reading of the Pueblo Indian
Before we met, you and I were halves unjoined except in the wide rivers of our minds. We were each other’s distant shore, the opposite wings of a bird, the other half of a seashell.
We did not know the other then, did not know our determination to keep alive the cry of one riverbank to the other. We were apart, yet connected in our ignorance of each other, like two apples sharing a common tree.
I knew you existed long before you understood my desire to join my freedom to yours. Our paths collided long enough for our indecision to be swallowed up by the greater need of love.
When you came to me, the sun surged towards the earth and the moon escaped from darkness to bless the union of two spirits, so alike that the creator had designed them for life’s endless circle.
Beloved partner, keeper of my heart’s odd secrets, clothed in summer blossoms so the icy hand of winter never touches us. I thank your patience.
Our joining is like a tree to earth, a cloud to sky and even more. We are the reason the world can laugh on its battlefields and rise from the ashes of its selfishness to hear me say, in this time, this place, this way – I loved you best of all.
Reading 14
‘Marriage Is Love’
When two are caring as they are sharing life’s hopes and fears;
When music of laughter outweighs sadness and tears;
Marriage is togetherness. When both derive pleasure from the mere presence of each other; Yet when parted no jealousies restrict, worry or smother;
Marriage is freedom. If achievements mean more when they benefit two; And consideration is shown with each point of view
Marriage is respect. And if togetherness, freedom and respect are combined with a joy that words can never fully define, then marriage is love.
Reading 15
You Are Me – Thich Naht Hahn
You Are Me
You are me and I am you.
It is obvious that we are interare.
You cultivate the flower in
yourself so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself so
that you do not have to suffer.
I support you, you support me.
I am here to bring you peace
you are here to bring me joy.
Reading 16
Aztec Indian Wedding Poem
I know not whether thou has been absent:
I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee,
In my dreams thou art with me.
If my eardrops tremble in my ears,
I know it is thou moving within my heart.
Bless our children, friends, and visitors through a happy life.
May our trails lie straight and level before us.
Let us live to be old.
We are all your children and ask these things with good hearts.
Reading 17
We ask the Universe to protect the ones we love.
We honour Mother Earth and ask for our marriage to be abundant and
grow stronger through the seasons.
We honour fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing
with love in our hearts.
We honour wind and ask that we sail through life safe and calm
in each other’s arms
We honour water, to clean and soothe our marriage,
so may we never thirst for love.
We ask the Universe for harmony and true happiness as as we pledge,
our hearts and lives together.
Reading 18
Louis de Berniere, ‘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 promulgation 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 but one tree!
Reading 19
‘The Apache Wedding Blessing’
Now you feel no rain, for each of you will be a shelter to the other.
Now you feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no loneliness, for each of you will be a companion to the other.
You are two bodies, but there is one life before you and one home.
When evening falls, each will look up and the other will be there.
He’ll take her hand; she will take his and you’ll turn together
To look at the road you travelled to reach this: the hour of your happiness.
It stretches behind you, even as the future lies ahead, long and winding road, whose every turning means discovery.
Old hopes, new laughter, shared fears.
Your adventure has just begun.
Reading 20
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality! by Oscar Wilde
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
With our young lives each springimpassioned tree
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
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,
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
We shall be part of the mighty universal whole,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shoot arrows at our pleasure!
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres?
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
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!
Reading 21
Marriage Advice from 1886 by Jane Wells
Never go to bed angry.
Let your love be stronger than your hate or anger.
Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is easier to bend a little than to break.
Believe the best rather than the worst.
People have a way of living up or down to your opinion of them.
Remember that true friendship is the basis for any lasting relationship.
The person you choose to marry is deserving of the courtesies and kindness you bestow on your friends.
Please pass this on to your children and their children’s children.
The more things change the more they are the same.
Reading 22
W.B. Yeats. “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”
Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Reading 23
“Today is the Day” – variation
Look at one another and remember this moment in time.
Before this moment you may 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.
Reading 24
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 TOGETHER.
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.
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!)
KIDS, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So…
be your name Eilis or Colin, 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!
Reading 25
Nothing is Easier – Author Unknown
Nothing is easier than saying words, and nothing harder than living them day by day.
What you promise today must be renewed and re-decided tomorrow.
At the end of this ceremony, legally you will be husband and wife, but you must still decide,
each day that stretches out before you, that you want to be married.
Real love is something beyond the warmth and glow,
the excitement and romance of being deeply in love.
It is caring as much about the welfare and happiness of your marriage partner as about your own.
But real love is not total absorption in each other;
it is looking outward in the same directions — together.
Love makes burdens lighter – because you divide them.
It makes joys more intense – because you share them.
Love makes you stronger, so you can reach out
and become involved with life in ways you dared
not risk alone.
Reading 25
Nothing Else Matters – by Metallica
So close no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters
Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don’t just say
And nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you
Everyday for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters …
Reading 26
Carrie’s Poem
– by Carrie Bradshaw (Sex in 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 she instantly knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was “I do”
