Scroll down the page to find exactly the Reading or Poem you think fits the ethos of your Wedding Ceremony. Look carefully the words to find the expression of your love with which you are both comfortable. New Wedding Readings and Poems are added all the time.
Adapted 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 promulgation of promises 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…….roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from your branches you find that you are one tree and not two.
Louis De Bernières
CELTIC BLESSING
May the raindrops fall gently on your brow,
May the soft winds freshen your spring,
May the sunshine brighten your hearts,
May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you
And may you each enfold the other in the mantle of your loveauthor unknown
From THE PROPHET
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Khalil Gibran
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.
Author unknown
I WILL BE HERE
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.
Steven Curtis Chapman
Put your hand on my heart, say that you love me as
The woods upon the hills cleave to the hills' contours.
I will uphold you, trunk and shoot and flowering sheaf,
And I will hold you, roots and fruit and fallen leaf.
E.J. Scovell
THESE I CAN PROMISE
I cannot promise you a life of sunshine;
I cannot promise riches, wealth or gold;
I cannot promise you an easy pathway
That leads away from change or growing old.
But I can promise all my heart's devotion
A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow;
A love that's ever true and ever growing;
A hand to hold in yours through each tomorrow.
Mark Twain
From WHERE WE BELONG
Then you rose into my life
Like a promised sunrise.
Brightening my days with the light in your eyes.
I've never been so strong,
Now I'm where I belong.
Maya Angelou
A DEDICATION TO MY WIFE
To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens our senses in our waking time
And the rhythm that governs the response of our sleeping time,
The breathing in unison
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without the need of speech
And babble the same speech without need of meaning.
No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose garden which is ours and ours only
But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.
T.S. Elliot
It is not enough to love passionately: you must also love well. A passionate love is good doubtless, but a beautiful love is better.
If compassion
does not enter into the feelings you have for one another,
these feelings will not always befit
all the circumstances of your life together;
they will be like festive robes that will not shield you
from wind and rain.
We love truly only those we love even in their weakness and their poverty.
To forbear, to forgive, to console - that is the science of love.
Anatole France
A WALLED GARDEN
Your marriage should have within it, a secret and protected place, open to you alone.
Imagine it to be a walled garden, entered by a door to which only you hold the key.
Within this garden you will cease to be a mother, father, employee, homemaker or any other of the role which you fulfil in daily life.
Here you are yourselves - two people who love each other.
Here you can concentrate on one another's needs.
So take each other's hand and go back to your garden.
The time you spend together is not wasted but invested.
Invested in your future and the nurture of your love.
Author unknown
THE ART OF A GOOD MARRIAGE
A good marriage must be created.
In the 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 each day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together and facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right person, it is being the right partner.
Wilfred Arlan Peterson
May the road rise up to meet you,May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May your days be good and long upon the earth.
May you live to see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.
Traditional Irish Blessing, author unknown
I LOVE YOU….
I love you
For the kindness in your eyes
And the warmth in your voice,
For the honesty of your words
And the silence of your smile;
For the ways in which we're similar,
And those in which we're worlds apart.
For the openness of your understanding
And the acceptance of your heart;
For the tenderness of your touch
And the strength of your commitment,
For your sense of humour
And your seriousness of purpose;
For a thousand small reasons,
And one most important of all:
Simply because you are you.
In all of creation you are the one whom I cherish most,
The one with whom I hope to share my life:
Its joys, its sorrows, its accomplishments, its challenges,
While building our dreams together and growing everyday
In the love that makes us one.
Author unknown
ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
Today is a day you will always remember
The greatest in anyone's life
You'll 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 forever 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
Author unknown
SONNET 116
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-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is not 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.
William Shakespeare
HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN
Had I the heavens' 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.
W.B. Yeats
I PROMISE
I promise to give you the best of myself
And to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person
And to realise that your interests, desires and needs
Are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention
And to bring 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 in the only way I know how - completely and forever.
Dorothy R. Colgan
Today I marry my friend,
The one I have laughed and cried with,
The one I have learned from and shared with,
The one I have chosen to support, encourage,
And give myself to,
through all the days Given us to share.
Today I marry the one I love.
Bertrand Russell
THE THOUGHTS OF NANUSHKA
May your friendship and trust
Endure and strengthen
Through the winter of your lives-
And may your love
Be renewed
As surely as the blossoms
Adorn the trees each spring-
May your understanding of each other
Grow with your love
Until the wonder
Of each night and day
Become a lifetime
Of happiness together.
Nan Witcomb
You shall not walk alone
My heart will be your shelter
And my arms will be your home.
Author unknown
A RED RED ROSE
O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve is like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns
O WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST
O wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;
Or did Misfortune's bitter storms
Around the blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'
Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a Paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there;
Or were I Monarch o' the globe,
Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my Crown
Wad be my Queen, wad be my Queen.
Robert Burns
IF
If you treat each other kindly with compassion and with trust And always let your feelings show,
If you laugh together often and enjoy the time you share,
But give each other space to learn and grow,
If you understand your differences, respecting who you are,
And put each other first in all you do-
Your marriage will be wonderful, a reason to feel proud,
And a special source of love, your whole lives through.
Author unknown
APACHE BLESSING
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.
May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years,
May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.
Treat yourselves and each other with respect,
and remind yourselves often of what brought you together.
Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.
When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship,
as they threaten all relationships at one time or another,
remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong.
In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives, remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment,
the sun is still there.
And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together,
it will be marked by abundance and delight.
Author unknown
From A NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN MARRIAGE CEREMONY
May the sun bring you new energies by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night.
May the rain wash away any worries you may have
And the breeze blow new strength into your being.
And then, all the days of your life,
May you walk gently through the world
And know its beauty.
Now you will feel not the rain, for each will shelter the other.
Now you will feel not cold, for each will warm the other.
Now you will feel not solitude, for each will company the other.
Now you are two persons, but both will lead one life.
Go now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life,
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.
Author unknown
You are my wife (husband)
My feet shall run because of you
My feet, dance because of you.
My heart shall beat because of you.
My eyes, see because of you.
My mind, think because of you.
And I shall love because of you.
Author unknown
LOVE IS THE REASON
Love is the reason why this day
Was chosen by you both
To begin your lives together -
And love is the reason why you both
Will give with all your hearts
For the good of each other.
Love is the reason
That together you will become one -
One in hope,
One in believing in life and
One in sharing the coming years.
Brian Zouch
MARRIAGE IS ONE LONG CONVERSATION
Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost unconsciously, and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new worlds of thought.
