Wedding readings that aren't shit

[NoEffingWay]

In a nutshell. I don't want Corinthians or a Shakespearian sonnet, nor something from the 'Owl and the Pussycat'. I would like something meaningful, modern-ish and short!

Any ideas, please feel free. Cheers 🍻

@Luredbyapomegranate I rely on you has received a thumbs up from DP, we might have a winner!

I want a second though...

We had Union by Robert Fulghum (mentioned above) and also this by John Cooper Clarke:

I Wanna Be Yours

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotion

We had ‘Scaffolding’ by Seamus Heaney. Strikes a chord if you’ve been together a while….

I read this at a friends wedding last year and I thought it was a lovely, different choice

Another Neil Gaiman for you:

This for you, for both of you,
a small poem of happiness
filled with small glories and little triumphs
a fragile, short cheerful song
filled with hope and all sorts of futures

Because at weddings we imagine the future
Because it’s all about “what happened next?”
all the work and negotiation and building and talk
that makes even the tiniest happily ever after
something to be proud of for a wee forever

This is a small thought for both of you
like a feather or a prayer,
a wish of trust and love and hope
and fine brave hearts and true.

Like a tower, or a house made all of bones and dreams
and tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows

Do you want a reading or do you think you 'should' ? If the former it looks like there are plenty of suggestions, if the latter don't stress.

I shall have this at my next wedding, when I am 74 and marrying a handsome 32 year old, whilst wearing leopard print and wobbly lipstick, surrounded by disapproving relations.

I had Sonnet 130 at my wedding.

I've loved it since I was a teen. A non-smushy ode to loving someone as they are, not stupid poetic ideals.

I could have written this!

Some lovely suggestions here, albeit all a bit hetero.

@MiddleParking , Raymond Carver - that poem in particular - is an especial favourite of mine.

I love this, from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

And what of Marriage, master?

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you
shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white
wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance
between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond
of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from
one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat
not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each
other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain
your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near
together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow
not in each other’s shadow.

I keep going to weddings where this is read and I think it’s really unsuitable. People often chop the end lines off (as here) or, even worse, leave them in. It’s a poem about infidelity. It ends with ‘I don’t wanna be hers, I wanna be yours’. Ick.

We had the Steinbeck letter to his son mentioned earlier in the thread read at our wedding, I absolutely love it. And while it was being read I heard someone behind us in the room whisper "oh my god it's perfect"! ❤️ We'd been together a long time before marrying too, so the line 'nothing good gets away' just felt so right for us.

We had a reading from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, read by my MIL-

“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 root was 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.”

‘I Love You’ by Roy Croft.

We chose this one for our wedding 16yrs ago, and I still love it just as much today.

My husbands uncle had this at his wedding. I thought it was great.

I also love this by Carol Ann Duffy

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/valentine/

@IheartBTS it is truly lovely, but unfortunately I used it in my first wedding so possibly poor taste to use for this one?! (Ex-h and I are on very good terms so please don't worry you have offended me-reading it again made me think of some of our better moments, we were just young and not meant to be)

My sister read one I love at her wedding:

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

— Wendy Cope

I love this one:

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

We had Yes I'll Marry You by Pam Ayers. Very funny

This was one of mine. Still true.

Even like two little bank-dividing brooks,
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
And having ranged and searched a thousand nooks,
Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
Where in a greater current they conjoin,
So I my best-beloveds am; so he is mine.

Even so we met; and after long pursuit,
Even so we joined; we both became entire;
No need for either to renew a suit,
For I was flax and he was flames of fire,
Our firm united souls did more than twine;
So I my best-beloveds am; so he is mine.

Nor time, nor place, nor chance, nor death can bow;
My least desires unto the least remove;
He's firmly mine by oath; I his by vow;
He's mine by faith; and I am his by love;
He's mine by water; I am his by wine;
Thus I my best-beloveds am; thus he is mine.

He gives me wealth, I give him all my vows;
I give him songs; he gives me length of days;
With wreaths of grace he crowns my conquering brows;
And I his temples with a crown of praise,
Which he accepts as an everlasting sign,
That I my best-beloveds am; that he is mine.

Jeez, my hayfever is bad today...

Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
XVII
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.

What kind of venue? If it's a church you have to have at least one bible reading. My friends had a reading from Winnie the Pooh as a second reading though - was really lovely and read by her 7 year old niece

One of James Joyce's love letters to Nora Barnacle would be fresh and interesting.

I did as you told me, you dirty little girl, and pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when I fucked you for so long backwards. It was the dirtiest fucking I ever gave you, darling. My prick was stuck up in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue come bursting out through your lips and if I gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.