Are all wedding readings twee or cringeworthy?? Help.

[freeAnneBoleyn]

Because I can’t find even one I like, except the extract from ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, which I read out at my grandmother’s funeral... so that’s out.

All the others are either twee horrid things about taking the bins out or doing the washing up, (actually I’m going to have to give an example, it’s by Pam Ayres...)

‘Yes I’ll marry you my dear, you may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble dryer goes, its you that has to mend it’

It just goes on and on like that. It’s truly toe-curling.

Or pretentious. I love DH but I can’t compare him to a summers day, I doubt he’d say I was one either. It’s not a love that has had to endure the horrors of the Somme or Spanish influenza. (Thankfully)

We’re not religious. Nothing there.

I get it’s a public declaration of love and commitment etc but I’m finding the whole thing so wanky I’m horrid, I know, I’m just not outwardly sentimental in the slightest. I don’t want to have to surpress a scoff as it gets read.

DP is making me choose because I’m so bloody picky, he’ll happily just go with it if I actually manage to find one I don’t shred to pieces.

Can anyone tell me what they had at theirs, and why you chose it?

Cs Lewis? There’s one that starts ‘to love is to be vulnerable....’

You don't have to have readings but if you do want them it can be anything (song lyrics, film quotes, prose passage from a favourite book, a whole children's story) think what is pertinent to your relationship.

This was ours:

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.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.

-James Kavanaugh

I read the Bob Marley one for a friend. Lots of people found it apt for a couple that had been together for a while.

We got married in Church and I distinctly recall FIL doing a reading that compared me to a majestic galleon ship (I was 5mo pregnant but really! )

Glad you like the Scaffolding one! I didn’t read it myself, we got family members to do the readings (we both did speeches). The language is so plain it doesn’t need any drama gcse stuff, the dryer the person who reads it the better I think.

Exactly Egremont. Dry I can definitely do! It might just work

OP think you missed my earlier suggestion of Union?

Hang on- I will check out union!

Sorry- not sold on Union! I don’t dislike it, it’s just not for me.

Seriously though thank you so much for all the suggestions. This has been a way more useful reference point than the articles I found online!

They’re all twee. Really fucking twee.

If you don’t want a reading from a text that’s thousands of years old, has figured in countless ceremonies of joy at marriage, has been pored over and interpreted by scholars and carries the weight of billions of adherents...I’d suggest you DON’T go for the inside of a Hallmark card.

I cringe every time I hear mawkish C19th poetry at weddings. And cringe even more at the pathetic ramblings of anonymous online poets.

If you don’t want the bible, just speak sincerely and say what you feel and commit to.

One of my favourites is Atlas by U.A.Fanthorpe, here

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) - To Be One With Each Other

'What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen
each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other in the
silent unspoken memories?'

The Neil Gaiman one is the best by far, though.

My friends had this one. I love it, but you need someone good to read it..

“I Like You” by Sandol Stoddard Warburg

I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special,
you know it’s special.
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember?
When I think something is important
you think it’s important too.
We have good ideas.
When I say something funny,
you laugh. I think I’m funny
and you think I’m funny too. Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I’m ticklish.
And you don’t tickle me there,
except just a little tiny bit sometimes.
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too.
You know how to be silly
That’s why I like you.
Boy are you ever silly.
I never met anybody sillier than me
till I met you. I like you because
you know when it’s time to stop being silly.
Maybe day after tomorrow.
Maybe never.
Too late, it’s a quarter past silly.
Sometimes we don’t say a word.
We snurkle under fences.
We spy secret places.
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off,
You are one too.
If I pretend I am drowning,
you pretend you are saving me.
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump.
HOORAY!
That’s because you really like me.
You really like me, don’t you?
And I really like you back.
And you like me back and I like you back.
And that’s the way we keep on going every day.
If you go away, then I go away too;
or if I stay home, you send me a postcard.
You don’t just say,
Well see you around sometime, bye!
I like you a lot because of that.
If I go away, I send you a postcard too.
And I like you because
if we go away together,
And if we are in Grand Central Station,
And if I get lost
Then you are the one that is yelling for me.
And I like you because
when I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away.
Sometimes it is better to be sad.
You can’t stand the others
being so googly and gaggly every single minute.
You want to think about things.
It takes time.
I like you because if I am mad at you,
Then you are mad at me too.
It’s awful when the other person isn’t.
They are so nice and hoo-hoo
you could just about punch them in the nose.
I like you because if I think I
am going to throw up,
then you are really sorry.
You don’t just pretend you are busy
looking at the birdies and all that.
You say, maybe it was something you ate.
You say, the same thing happened to me one time.
And the same thing did.
If you find two four-leaf clovers,you give me one.
If I find four, I give you two.
If we only find three, we keep on looking.
Sometimes we have good luck,
and sometimes we don’t. If I break my arm,
and if you break your arm too,
Then it’s fun to have a broken arm.
I tell you about mine, you tell me about yours.
We are both sorry.
We write our names and draw pictures.
We show everybody
and they wish they had a broken arm too.
I like you because
I don’t know why
but Everything that happens is nicer with you.
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you.
It must have been lonesome then.
I like you because because because
I forget why I like you, but I do.
So many reasons.
On the 4th of July
I like you because it’s the 4th of July. On the fifth of July,
I like you too. If you and I had some drums
and some horns and some horses,
If we had some hats and some flags
and some fire engines,
We could be a HOLIDAY.
We could be a CELEBRATION.
We could be a WHOLE PARADE.
See what I mean?
Even if it was the 999th of July,
Even if it was August,
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November,
Even if it was no place particular in January,
I would go on choosing you.
And you would go on choosing me.
Over and over again.
That’s how it would happen every time.
I don’t know why.
I guess I don’t know why I really like you.
Why do I like you.
I guess I just like you.
I guess I just like you.
because I like you.

I’m sorry to admit I am finding 9/10 of these waaaayyyy too twee. I’m too dry. I don’t get sentimental generally (not in public anyway )

We had marriage isn't beautiful along with a couple of others.

Well I like the Neil Gaiman one the best. Although John Cooper Clarke 'I wanna be yours' is great too.

How is Fanthorpe twee?!

We had a rural, partly outdoors wedding and had the Taylor Mali poem “why falling in love is like owning a dog” which I loved and which really worked for us. We’re very keen on our dog and only found the venue in the first place because of the dog. We also had our dog at the wedding and our lovely florist made a corsage for her collar as a surprise for us. Looked lovely - our dog is big and manic but incredibly gentle and looks like she has a bit grin in all the photos.

Link - www.bournemouth.gov.uk/birthsdeathsmarriages/marriages-and-civil-partnerships/planning-your-ceremony/wedding-readings/falling-in-love-is-like-owning-a-dog.aspx

Friends had a passage from Winnie the Pooh - really sweet read by her young niece (and in church!). How about song lyrics? Or have a song sung - my DD's a singer and she's been asked to sing odd things, so anything goes (including anything goes!)

@BlueUggs we had that one too! We got married in a big museum full of dinosaurs, so no contest really!
Love the sound of your cake too

Let Me Put It This Way by Simon Armitage

Let me put it this way:

if you came to lay

your sleeping head

against my arm or sleeve,

and if my arm went dead,

or if I had to take my leave

at midnight, I should rather

cleave it from the joint or seam

than make a scene

or bring you round.

There,

how does that sound?

@WinkyisbackontheButterBeer are you my friend?!

I know it is ubiquitous but I love the captain Corelli one, it said everything I actually hoped for when I married DH and after 14 years of.marriage I think it encapsulates what our marriage is like at its best. I also have a steak of cynicism and particularly like the ' this is both an art and a fortunate accident' as it sums up my view of relationships generally really

I have read the book but that does not really affect how I see the text. I appreciate that is not the same for everyone though

I took ages to choose as well.so.do sympathise. DH chose The voyage by Johnny Dugan.

We are very dry and non sentimental too. V unromantic! We had Notes on Marriage by Charles Darwin (he wrote them when deciding to marry or not..)

^This is the Question

Marry

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — better than a dog anyhow.– Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — but terrible loss of time. —

My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.

Not Marry

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health[19] to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

He then produces his conclusion:

Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.^

You do need someone who can strike the right note to do the reading though