If you've been to a lot of weddings, you'll probably feel like you've heard every reading in existence. After all, there are only so many different ones, and people often play it safe. I thought I'd gone classy and original for my wedding readings...but since then I have photographed loads of weddings which also used Sonnet 116. I was like...
Regardless, I still love that reading. (And I would always recommend it!)
But I digress. The main issue I have with most wedding readings isn't necessarily that they're common, but that they're...well...a bit cringe. Perhaps I'm a bit old-fashioned, but any modern poems about leaving loo seats up, sex, or what goes into a 'recipe for love' particularly set my teeth on edge.
However, there are also plenty of readings which are non-cringe, make no mention of toilet habits, and which are just...well, really romantic! Here are ten of my favourites.
1. The Bridge Across Forever - Richard Bach
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.Â
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, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.
2. Love - Roy Croft
I love youÂ
Not only for what you are,Â
But for what I amÂ
When I am with you.
I love you,Â
Not only for whatÂ
You have made of yourself,Â
But for whatÂ
You are making of me.
I love youÂ
For the part of meÂ
That you bring out;
I love youÂ
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heartÂ
And passing overÂ
All the foolish, weak thingsÂ
That you can't helpÂ
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had lookedÂ
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to makeÂ
Of the lumber of my lifeÂ
Not a tavernÂ
But a temple.
Out of the worksÂ
Of my every dayÂ
Not a reproachÂ
But a song.
I love youÂ
Because you have done
More than any creedÂ
Could have doneÂ
To make me good.Â
And more than any fateÂ
Could have doneÂ
To make me happy.
You have done itÂ
Without a touch,Â
Without a word,Â
Without a sign.
You have done itÂ
By being yourself.Â
Perhaps that is whatÂ
Being a friend means,Â
After all.
3. One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII - Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   from the earth lives dimly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
4. On Love - Thomas Kempis
Love is a mighty power,
a great and complete good.
Love alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable. Nothing is sweeter than love, Nothing stronger, Nothing higher, Nothing wider, Nothing more pleasant, Nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God. Love flies, runs and leaps for joy. It is free and unrestrained. Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength. Love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. It is strange and effective, while those who lack love faint and fail. Love is not fickle and sentimental, nor is it intent on vanities. Like a living flame and a burning torch, it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.
5. Extract from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. Â
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, 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.
6. Touched by an Angel - 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.
7. Extract from Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.
Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven.
8. A Blessing for Wedding - Jane Hirshfield
Today when persimmons ripen
Today when fox-kits come out of their den into snow
Today when the spotted egg releases its wren song
Today when the maple sets down its red leaves
Today when windows keep their promise to open
Today when fire keeps its promise to warm
Today when someone you love has died
or someone you never met has died
Today when someone you love has been born
or someone you will not meet has been born
Today when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness
Today when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired
Today when someone sits long inside his last sorrow
Today when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace
Today, let this light bless you
With these friends let it bless you
With snow-scent and lavender bless you
Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly
Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears
Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes
Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you
Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days
9. How Do I Love Thee - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
10. Extract from The Amber Spyglass - Phillip 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.
Do you have a favourite wedding reading? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions to add to this list!
If you're after a wedding photographer and fancy having a chat if you think my taste in readings (and photos) isn't too bad, then hit the button below to contact me!
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