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?

We had The Lovely Love story, which I've seen you're not too keen on and The Art of a Good Marriage. If you don't like any readings why not pick a song you like and use the lyrics?

I've had the same problem as you op

We're having the Neil gaiman reading plus this one
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.

David Levithan,Every Day (Every Day, #1)

I've heard readings from Oh the Places You'll Go, by Dr Suess and from The Little Prince (the speech about the rose) both of which were nice. It doesn't have to be a standard 'wedding reading', just a text that has meaning for the bride and groom.

They all seem twee and cringe to me 🤮 just don't have one 😮

We had 'we are made one...' by Oscar Wilde. Well bits of it. I think it's too odd to be twee.

Made the Vicar a bit twitchy.

If I did it all again, I'd have this. 

twitter.com/dollyalderton/status/1069309963800141824?s=20

You mentioned above liking Lord of the Rings. Friend's had this reading at theirs:

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/TheEnttandtheeEntwife

Me and my DH got married at our local registry office and we were given a book of suggested secular readings. Some of which were lovely - could you ask at your local one?

We had a religious reading at ours, but my sister had this by Philip Pullman: snippetandink.com/ceremony-reading-the-amber-spyglass

We used this one which is romantic but not twee (although I think everyone has a different level of tolerance for twee!)

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.

We didn't have any readings, but we considered the following as a short musical ending to the ceremony.

It's a song by Lily Frost, The Two Of Us. It probably works better in its musical form as it's brief, happy and lovely, but I like it as a reading too. (We're not at all religious, but I don't mind the last line.)

The two of us is just enough
Just enough to cause a fuss
I've climbed the highest mountains
And I've swam the seven seas
And I've never found out nothing
Half as good as you and me
Oh, two of us
The two of us
Just you and me make history
God bless the two of us

I think what makes me cringe is the whole "uniqueness" of it all. Most people at the wedding will have a partner / be married and know what love is and how you both feel for each other. A reading feels cringe and smug.

We had John Donne's The Good Morrow but have a feeling it might be a little too on the romantic side for you.

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

We had this by Mary Oliver

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

I didn’t have proper readings, I had a couple of quotes. One from Nightmare Before Christmas and one which was from Winnie The Pooh, but my 4 year old read it (held by my brother so he wasn’t on his own) so it didn’t seem twee! I may have had another one to bulk it out but can’t remember! I struggled too.

We had 'Love' by Roy Croft

We both read it a few months before and loved it. For me it explained exactly how I feel about DH- maybe it sounds twee, but not to me?

Several of the wedding party commented afterwards that they liked it, and someone with beautiful handwriting gave us a written version as a gift a few weeks later. So I'm assuming that not everyone was dying inside when they had to listen to it as implied by several posters on this thread.

I guess though, that the important thing is that DH and I liked it?

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what You have made of yourself,
But for what You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
that you can't help dimly seeing there.
And for drawing out into the light
all the beautiful belongings that no one else
had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you
because you are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern but a temple;
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach but a song.

I love you
Because you have done more than any creed
could have done to make me good,
And more than any fate to make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.

Wips I LOVE that!

We had the Velveteen Rabbit and this poem by Peter Meinke:

The First Marriage
Peter Meinke
for Gretchen and Herb: June 15, 1991

imagine the very first marriage a girl
and boy trembling with some inchoate
need for ceremony a desire for witness:
inventing formality like a wheel or a hoe

in a lost language in a clearing too far from here
a prophet or a prophetess intoned to the lovers
who knelt with their hearts cresting
like the unnamed ocean thinking This is true

thinking they will never be alone again
though planets slip their tracks and fish
desert the sea repeating those magic sounds
meaning I do on this stone below
this tree before these friends yes in body
and word my darkdream my sunsong yes I do I do

Thank you @LittleMachine I love it too!

Theonlylivingboyinnewcross - we had that Simon Armitage reading. I still love it.

Also love your username btw - god, I miss Carter

(That Peter Meinke one you have to read aloud to get the full impact as the punctuation he's chosen makes it look a bit underwhelming on the page IMO)

@freeAnnBoleyn I'm also looking for a short reading / poem for our wedding and agree that some are so overused and make my toes curl with cringe. I'm not even sure who to ask to read it once I've found one

We had Oh, the places you'll go, from the Dr Suess book.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guys who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kids, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So, get on your way.

And another one I can't for the life of me remember the title of so will have to dig out the order of service.