Here are a few of the more popular ceremony readings you may want to consider for your wedding:
A Bridge Across Forever "Soul Mates"
by Richard Bock
“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are;
We can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us - with that one person - we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, and our sense of direction. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.”
The Marriage Box - Anonymous
Most people get married believing a myth that marriage
is beautiful box full of all the things they have longed for;
Companionship, intimacy, friendship etc ... The truth is, that marriage
at the start is an empty box, you must put something in before you can
take anything out. There is no love in marriage, love is in people, and
people put love in marriage. There is no romance in marriage, you have
to infuse it into your marriage. A couple must learn the art, and form
the habit of giving, loving, serving, praising, of keeping the box full.
If you take out more than you put in, the box will be empty.
Beyond Words - anonymous
They say they will love, comfort, honor each other to the end of their days. They say they will cherish each other and be faithful to each other always. They say they will do these things not just when they feel like it, but even- for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health – when they don’t feel like it at all.
In other words, the vows they make could hardly be more extravagant. They give away their freedom. They take on
themselves each others burdens. They bind their lives together…
The question is, what do they get in return?
They get each other in return… There will always be the other to talk to, to listen to… There is still someone to get through the night with, to wake into the new day beside.
If they have children, they can give them, as well as each other, roots and wings. If they don’t have children, they each become the other’s child.
They both still have their lives apart as well as a life together. They both still have their separate ways to find.
But a marriage made in heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone.
Union by 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 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 that 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.
Have You Ever Been In Love
by 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
defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, 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.
The Art of a Good Marriage
Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In 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 the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers 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 looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience,
understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow old.
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.
All My Happiness
by Nicholas Gordon
All my happiness goes out to you:
Pride and pleasure, joy, sweet tears, and love!
Reason, hope, and faith together move
In harmony to bless all that you do.
Let this beginning be the golden dawn
At which all dew-drenched nature sings its glory!
Nor should the darkness shrouding every story
Dim the blue-eyed beauty of this morn.
More of life will come than you can hold:
A flood no mortal witness can withstand.
Rest, then, within a quiet, gentle hand,
Knowing where love is as you grow old.
Blessing For A Marriage
by 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.”
I Promise
by Dorothy R. Colgan
I promise to give you the best of myself and ask of you no more than I can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests, desires and needs are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and attention and to bring you joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and all I feel inside the only way I know how. Completely and forever.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Louis 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 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 blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
