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?

Another person here who picked Captain Corelli's Mandolin- one of my favourite books, so it was always going to be a goer, despite the "twee"

Also had my best mate read out the lyrics to In My Life by The Beatles

Oh god, every time we go to a wedding and hear Captain Corelli DH look at each other and cringe! It’s the most unromantic reading possible. Except for the one DH’s friend had, where he demonstrated with graphs that most people go off their spouses pretty quickly and just live with them like room-mates. That was pretty bad too.

We had a mixture. One John Donne love poem, an extract from The Timeless Way of Building (design textbook) about living in harmony with your environment, something from Homage to Catalonia about social responsibility.

There’s no need for the reading to be about love specifically, ours were about our relationship and how we exist in the world, since marriage is a social construct. We’d been together ten years by the time we got married, everybody knew we loved each other. There must be some books or readings that are special to you both as a couple?

I didn’t say the Corelli one was twee, actually.

I said I very much liked it but given how the story ends I don’t think it’s that appropriate for a wedding

Sorry Sashkin, x-post! That was to Penny.

The only books we jointly like as a couple is Stephen Hawkins ABHOT and Animal Farm

DS2 had a reading from Harry Potter

The only reason I’m considering a reading is that the council/registrar/whoever marries in non-religious ceremonies have asked us to pick one. I didn’t know people didn’t have them, I’ve only been to church weddings or very small register office weddings before.

No worries, I x-posted wth Penny and it looks like I’m slagging her readings off too!

Marilyn winner!!

I bet there’s something philosophical in ABHOT. Something about the timeless nature of the universe, or something deep like that

No, no!

A rousing rendition of "Beasts of England", if you're picking from Animal Farm.

We had...

A Reading from the Book of Ruth (1:16-17)

Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people shall be my people and your God will be my God too. Wherever you die, I will die and there will I be buried beside you. We shall be together forever and our love will be the gift of God.

BUT i am religious. You could always adapt something to make it suit

We had Wild Awake by Hillary T Smith:

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

I found it hard to find anything I liked, this was the best of a bad bunch! I'm not a romantic either

We had Mark Twain 'These I can promise' and Edward Moncton 'That still and settled place'. I really struggled picking readings too!

You could always go with Tim Minchin?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=KynIKjRwqDI

I don't remember what we had! Is that awful? We only got married in 2012. I also don't remember what music we had.

We had 'The Life that I Have' by Leo Marks, which was written as a cipher in WWII. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_That_I_Have

dangerrabbit wins. The lyrics of that Tim Minchin song sound absolutely perfect for you, OP. 😂

"Let's face it; our lives are miserable, laborious and short."

Animal Farm.

You seem normal to me.

And to me OP. Nearly all these readings are some combination of twee, treacly or preposterous.

Of course it’s normal and you’re not really unusual

Whatever you choose please make sure the person reading it is actually comfortable with reading aloud.

The last two weddings I went to, they had chosen someone sentimental instead of someone who could do it. It was cringey for everyone involved

We had this:
With These Rings

You are fresh words
on the old stone of time.
Here, silence honours you,
here now, the earth turns,
the sun beats, the rain sings.
You are not adrift
among the wheeling constellations
but held by the hoop of love.
Ancient as the ring of standing stones,
prophetic as a snow-ring round the moon,
marriage is.
Wear your vows well when laughter
is the wine between you
or when night lies like a bolster
down the middle of your bed.
May the cold shoulder of the hill
always afford you shelter.
May the sun always seek you
however dark the place.
We who are wordless know
thorns have roses.
And when you go from this day
the burnished stars go with you.
When you go forward from this day,
the love that grew you
grows with you
and marriage is struck,
iron on stone, hand in hand.
Janet Paisley