Unforgettable Wedding Readings
Unique
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 Johannesburg. 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 defence?
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.
Extract from The Kindly Ones – Neil Gaiman
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defences, you build up a whole suit of armour so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life … You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you.
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 | Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view | And nothing else matters.
Never cared for what they do | Never cared for what they know
But I know.
I 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.
Never cared for what they say | Never cared for games they play
Never cared for what they do | Never cared for what they know
And I know.
So close no matter how far | Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are | No nothing else matters.
Bob Marley on love…
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 onto 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.
Letter from Johnny Cash to June Carter (1994)
“We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others’ minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit.
Maybe sometimes take each other for granted. But once in a while, like today, I meditate on it and realise how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met.”
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".
Mirrors
by Justin Timberlake
Aren't you something to admire, 'cause your shine is something like a mirror And I can't help but notice, you reflect in this heart of mine If you ever feel alone and the glare makes me hard to find Just know that I'm always parallel on the other side
'Cause with your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul I can tell you there's no place we couldn't go Just put your hand on the glass, I'm here trying to pull you through You just gotta be strong
'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 of 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
Aren't you something, an original, 'cause it doesn't seem merely assembled And I can't help but stare 'cause I see truth somewhere in your eyes Oh I can't ever change without you, you reflect me, I love that about you And if I could, I would look at us all the time (...)
Yesterday is history Tomorrow's a mystery I can see you looking back at me Keep your eyes on me Baby, keep your eyes on me
You are you are the love of my life (...)
I just wanna see your face light up since you put me on So now I say goodbye to the old me, it's already gone And I can't wait to get you home Just to let you know, you are
You are you are the love of my life
Girl you're my reflection, all I see is you My reflection, in everything I do You're my reflection and all I see is you My reflection, in everything I do
You are you are the love of my life
I Choose You
by Sara Bareilles
Let the bough break, let it come down crashing Let the sun fade out to a dark sky I can’t say I’d even notice it was absent ‘Cause I could live by the light in your eyes
I’ll unfold before you What I have strung together The very first words of a lifelong love letter
Tell the world that we finally got it all right I choose you I will become yours and you will become mine...
There was a time when I would have believed them If they told me that you could not come true Just love’s illusion But then you found me And everything changed And I believe in something again
My whole heart Will be yours forever This is a beautiful start To a lifelong love letter
Tell the world that we finally got it all right I choose you I will become yours and you will become mine...
We are not perfect we’ll learn from our mistakes And as long as it takes I will prove my love to you I am not scared of the elements I am underprepared, But I am willing And even better I get to be the other half of you
There Will Be Time
by Baaba Maal featuring Mumford and Sons
But in the cold light I live to love and adore you
It’s all that I am, it’s all that I have
In the cold light I live, I only live for you
It’s all that I am, it’s all that I have
Spiritual
John 2
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now." This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Song of Solomon 8
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
Ephesians 4
I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Colossians 3
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
1 Corinthians 13
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, 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, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Song of Solomon 4
Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.
Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Song of Solomon
I am my Beloved's
And he is mine.
Come my beloved,
Let us go forth into the field;
And lodge in the villages.
Let us go up early to the vineyards;
Let us see whether the vine has budded,
Whether the grape has opened,
And the pomegranates are in bloom;
There will I give thee my love.
The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
And at the door are all manner of precious fruits, new and old
Which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
1 John 4
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
A Hindu Love Poem
Let the earth of my body be mixed with the earth
my beloved walks on.
Let the fire of my body be the brightness
in the mirror that reflects his face.
Let the water of my body join the waters
of the lotus pool he bathes in.
Let the breath of my body be air
lapping his tired limbs.
Let me be sky, and moving through me the cloud-dark Shyama, my beloved
Ancient Hawaiian Marriage Prayer
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. Remember?
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 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.
Children’s Stories
Excerpt from Winnie the Pooh
by A. A. Milne
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.
Another excerpt from Winnie the Pooh
by A.A. Milne
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.
Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams
“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 the 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."
Excerpt from The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you—the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."
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! Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper, that’s what it’s all about! We need each other to raise us up and round us out. Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but when push comes to shove... The only fixer-upper fixer that can fix up a fixer-upper is true.
Romantic
Buried Light
by Beau Taplin
Home is not where
you are from
it is where
you belong.
Some of us
travel the whole
world to find it.
Others,
find it in a person.
Untitled
by R.M. Drake
You will be the clouds
and I will be the sky.
you will be the ocean
and I will be the shore.
you will be the trees
and I will be the wind.
whatever we are, you and I
will always collide.
Also Untitled
by R.M. Drake
but dear,
don't be
afraid of
love, it's
only magic.
Excerpt from Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo
You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. And even loved in spite of ourselves.
My First Love Story
by Rumi
The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
Excerpt from The Art of Power
by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Buddha spoke about four elements that constitute true love: the capacity to be kind and offer happiness, maitri in Sanskrit, compassion, the capacity to relieve suffering, karuna; the capacity to bring joy every day, mudita; and finally, the capacity of nondiscrimination, upeksha. When there is true love, there is nondiscrimination. The pain of the other is our own pain; the happiness of the other is our own happiness...To make our love meaningful, we need to nourish our bodhicitta, our mind of boundless love and compassion...First, we learn to love one person with all our understanding and insight; then we expand that love to embrace another person, and another, until our love is truly boundless."
Excerpt from Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis
The idea that 'being in love' is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: It is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.
And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: No one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.
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 loneliness, For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies, But there is 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.
I carry your heart
by E.E. Cummings
I carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)‘
Maybe
Maybe we are supposed to meet the wrong people before we meet the right
one so when they finally arrive we are truly grateful for the gift we have been
given.
Maybe it’s true that we don’t know what we have lost until we lose it but it is
also true that we don’t know what we’re missing until it arrives.
Maybe the happiest of people don’t have the best of everything, but make the
best of everything that comes their way.
Maybe the best kind of love is the kind where you sit on the sofa together, not
saying a word, and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you ever
had.
Maybe once in a lifetime you find someone who not only touches your heart but
also your soul, someone who loves you for who you are and not what you could
be.
Maybe the art of true love is not about finding the perfect person, but about
seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
True Friendship – Judy Bielicki
It is often said that it is love that makes the world go round. However, without doubt, it is friendship which keeps our spinning existence on an even keel.
True friendship provides so many of the essentials for a happy life — it is the foundation on which to build an enduring relationship, it is the mortar which bonds us together in harmony, and it is the calm, warm protection we sometimes need when the world outside seems cold and chaotic.
True friendship holds a mirror to our foibles and failings, without destroying our sense of worthiness. True friendship nurtures our hopes, supports us in our disappointments, and encourages us to grow to our best potential.
The bride and Groom came together as friends. Today, they pledge to each other not only their love, but also the strength, warmth and, most importantly, the fun of true friendship.
Today is your day — 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 in 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.
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 Groom and Bride Surname! You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way!