50 Unique Wedding Ceremony Readings To Bookmark

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 promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks—all those sentences

that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will and you will and we will”—those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe”—and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.

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, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. 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.

Madly in love after so many years … they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.

What I’m feeling, I think, is joy. And it’s been some time since I’ve felt that blinkered rush of happiness. This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that’ll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn’t ever tell its story. It’s like

something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework.

A loyal friend is a safe shelter: whoever finds one has indeed found a treasure. A loyal friend is something beyond price, there is no measuring his worth. A loyal friend is the elixir of life, and those who respect the Lord will find one. Whoever respects the Lord makes true friends, for as a person is, so is his friend too.

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as certain dark things are loved, Secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

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.

“Like the warmth of the morning sun, So do thoughts of you embrace me, Revealing how alive I am A glorious light of the new day, so is your presence in my life, relieving it of its shadows, and marking the start of a new beginning.”

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 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.

You were you and I was I; we were two before our time I was yours, before I knew and you have always been mine too.

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.

The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single: All things by a law divine In another’s being mingle— Why not I with thine? See, the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister flower could be forgiven

If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?

What is the beginning? Love. What the course. Love still. What the goal. The goal is Love. On a happy hill Is there nothing then but Love? Search we sky or earth There is nothing out of Love Hath perpetual worth; All things flag but only Love, All things fail and flee; There is nothing left but Love Worthy you and me.

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.

A marriage makes of two fractional lives a whole; It gives two purposeless lives a work, And doubles the strength of each to perform it. It gives to two questioning natures a reason for living And something to live for. It will give new gladness to the sunshine, A new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth And a new mystery to life.

I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because

I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

I want to make you smile whenever you’re sad. Carry you around when your arthritis is bad. All I want to do is grow old with you. I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches. Build you a fire if the furnace breaks. Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you. I’ll miss you, Kiss you, Give you my coat when you are cold. Need you, Feed you, Even let you hold the remote control.

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink. Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink. I could be the man who grows old with you. I want to grow old with you.

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 …

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.

To love is not to possess, To own or imprison, Nor to lose one’s self in another. Love is to join and separate, To walk alone and together, To find a laughing freedom That lonely isolation does not permit. It is finally to be able To be who we really are No longer clinging in childish dependency Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,

It is to be perfectly one’s self And perfectly joined in permanent commitment To another—and to one’s inner self.

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, 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.

“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;? for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave? Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.”

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,

to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

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.

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

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.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “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.”

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.

‘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.’

“I revere you. I esteem and admire you above all human beings. You are the friend to whom my soul is attached as to its better half. You are the most amiable, the most perfect of women. And you are dearer to me than language has the power of telling… You are now all my own… How will my soul find room for its happiness? It seems already bursting!”

Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime.Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships.

“People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.”

“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists.

They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair. Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

“Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops like the universe itself only by perpetual discovery. The only right love is that between couples whose passion leads them both, one through the other, to a higher possession of their being. Put your faith in the spirit which dwells between the two of you. You have each offered yourself to the other as a

boundless field of understanding, of enrichment, of mutually increased sensibility. You will meet above all by entering into and constantly sharing one another’s thoughts, affections, and dreams. There alone, as you know, in spirit, which is arrived through flesh, you will find no disappointments, no limits. There alone the skies are ever open for your love; there alone lies the great road ahead.”

“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.”

“At night, there was the feeling that we had to come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they

are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”

“You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but I forgot I knew until I heard it again.”

god must have kneaded you and i from the same dough rolled us out as one on the baking sheet must have suddenly realized how unfair it was to put that much magic in one person and sadly split that dough in two how else is it that when i look in the mirror i am looking at you when you breathe

my own lungs fill with air that we just met but we have known each other our whole lives if we were not made as one to begin with

I’ll be there my darling, through thick and through thin When your mind’s in a mess and your head’s in a spin When your plane’s been delayed, and you’ve missed the last train. When life is just threatening to drive you insane When your thrilling whodunit has lost its last page When somebody tells you, you’re looking your age When your coffee’s too cool, and your wine is too warm

This is a word we use to plug holes with. It’s the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart- shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace and you can sell it. We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form that comes with no instructions. There are whole magazines with not much in them

but the word love, you can rub it all over your body and you can cook with it too.

Beloved, I have to adore the earth: The wind must have heard your voice once. It echoes and sings like you. The soil must have tasted you once. It is laden with your scent. The trees honor you in gold and blush when you pass. I know why the north country is frozen. It has been trying to preserve your memory.

“When he looked into her eyes, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke — the language that everyone on Earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life,

and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. Because when you know the language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the

incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely; a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

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.

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

I saw two clouds at morning, Tinged with the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on, And mingled into one; I thought that morning cloud was blest, It moved so sweetly to the west. I saw two summer currents Flow smoothly to their meeting, And join their course, with silent force,

In peace each other greeting: Calm was their course through banks of green, While dimpling eddies played between. Such be your gentle motion, Till life’s last pulse shall beat; Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream, Float on, in joy, to meet A calmer sea, where storms shall cease— A purer sky, where all is peace.

but dear, don’t be afraid of love, it’s only magic.

“Loving you has no end and no beginning Loving you is everything It is infinite in time And limitless in magnitude Beyond even my own comprehension Your love brings me home Enfolds me and warms me In its eternal embrace Endless and palpable Beyond all life’s storms A connection like no other Twenty years long

But timeless in our hearts Deep and true Till’ death us do part.”

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50 Unique Wedding Ceremony Readings To Bookmark

1. From Beginning to End by Robert Fulghum

that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will and you will and we will”—those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe”—and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.

1. From Beginning to End by Robert Fulghum

2. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres

2. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres

Madly in love after so many years … they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

4. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework.

4. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

5. The Book of Ecclesiasticus

6. Love Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda

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.

7. Untitled by R.M. Drake

“Like the warmth of the morning sun, So do thoughts of you embrace me, Revealing how alive I am A glorious light of the new day, so is your presence in my life, relieving it of its shadows, and marking the start of a new beginning.”

8. The New Beginning by Kolapo Olufunk

9. The Art of Marriage by Wilferd A. Peterson

It is 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.

9. The Art of Marriage by Wilferd A. Peterson

You were you and I was I; we were two before our time I was yours, before I knew and you have always been mine too.

10. Always by Lang Leav

11. How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

11. How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

12. Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?

12. Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

13. Untitled by Christina Rossetti

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.

14. Buried Light by Beau Taplin

15. A Marriage by Mark Twain

16. When Harry Met Sally

I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

16. When Harry Met Sally

17. The Wedding Singer

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink. Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink. I could be the man who grows old with you. I want to grow old with you.

17. The Wedding Singer

18. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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 …

18. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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.

19. Sex and the City

20. To Love Is Not To Possess by James Kavanaugh

It is to be perfectly one’s self And perfectly joined in permanent commitment To another—and to one’s inner self.

20. To Love Is Not To Possess by James Kavanaugh

21. The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach

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.

21. The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach

22. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

23. Song of Solomon 8:6-7

24. Colossians 3:12-17

24. Colossians 3:12-17

25. Romans 12:9-18

25. Romans 12:9-18

26. I Choose You by Sara Bareilles

26. I Choose You by Sara Bareilles

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.

26. I Choose You by Sara Bareilles

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

27. There Will Be Time by Mumford and Sons, featuring Baaba Maal

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.

28. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

29. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

29. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

29. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

30. How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali

but you can never be mad at love for long.

30. How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali

31. Letter from Johnny Cash to June Carter (1994)

32. Evelina by Frances Burney

33. Marriage Joins Two People In the Circle of Its Love by Edmund O’Neill

34. Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

35. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

35. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

36. Love is an Adventure by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

36. Love is an Adventure by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

37. Every Day by David Levithan

38. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”

38. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway