Readings at weddings

[garlictwist]

I'm getting married! This is most unexpected as I've been with DP 15 years and we didn't think we'd bother but here we are and I find myself quite excited.

My mother is also excited. She is wading in day and night with her thoughts and opinions on the matter. She is insistent one must have readings at the ceremony.

I appreciate that without readings it's relatively brief (a bonus, in my opinion). But I am open to considering it.

I guess if you have readings you want them to be personal to you rather than just some generic sonnet but nothing really is. And everything I've googled seems cheesy AF.

Did you have readings? Any good ones? Will it be weird and short if we just do the "I dos"?

The only benefit to readings I think is to make someone/some people have a 'role' in the wedding without needing to have them has a bridesmaid or whatever. I find them very tedious at most weddings so I'm fully on your side.

I think this is a lovely reading, not too twee, and a bit funny. The book has cute pictures too.

https://www.lovemydress.net/blog/wedding-readings/a-lovely-love-story-by-edward-monkton

But if you don’t want readings then don’t be pressured into having them, I was pressured to have so much at my wedding that I didn’t want.

Iirc at our registry office wedding we didnt pick any readings but the registrar did read something. It bought the other registrar some time to complete the admin bits like filling out the certificate.

Poems and books are a big part of my life, I definitely wanted readings but they were meaningful to us - a poem from DH’s country, for example. They were all readings which are quite popular at weddings although not so much then, but for me, great writers talking about love and marriage in beautiful language made the ceremony more meaningful. We also had music from a friend.

I’m trying to think if I have been to a ceremony that didn’t have readings and whether it seemed short, but I can’t think of any that didn’t have them. I wouldn’t include them for the sake of it though. It doesn’t have to be poems, it could be song lyrics or anything really that means something to you.

We had maybe at ours and I still think it was perfect for us , describes our marriage and relationship and 11 years in still happy

Readings aside, you need to make sure your mum remembers who is getting married. It's your day not hers so don't regret stuff because other people have pushed you into it.

I rarely go to weddings but never been to one with a reading- I think that would be really nice to hear!

Only if there are specific things you want read because they’re meaningful to you, otherwise it’s just the same ghastly generic slop from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Are there any songs you like? I was at a lovely wedding when the lyrics from the couple's favourite song was read out. Songs are really just poetry!

Hmm - that reminds me of Pete and Dawn in Gavin and Stacey renewing their vows...

We are having 2 and prayers but it's in church (one from isaiah, one from John though there's a couple of other contenders, might be spending a bit too much time looking at readings whilst at work, it is a church though work, they must be thinking I've turned very devote!)

When was that written? The 70s or 80s? Nice as it is for the dragon couple when they shack up together it’s entirely based on sexist stereotypes. I’d rather not have a reading that suggests my “mind skips from here to there” and the rest of the time I’m shopping.

@garlictwist I’m a wedding registrar! You can have readings if you choose (no more than 2 usually).

From my point of view, having heard what feels like every reading in the world, people tend to use something from Winnie the Poo, Captain Corellis Mandolin, or they read out a poem or words to a song. Very rarely do I hear something new or unusual. Personally, I think most of the guests switch off at this point, and as a PP said before, it’s mainly to give someone a role in the wedding. I have noticed that, and I say this as kindly as possible, many people are not confident public speakers, so they either haven’t practiced, or they rush, or they aren’t familiar with how to pace, or they are too quiet and don’t project. The intersection between ‘giving someone a role’ and ‘that person being a good speaker’ seems small.

However, there are plenty of ideas for readings online, I would suggest choosing something short and sweet.

If your mum really is sticking her oar in, and you don’t mind accommodating her, then I suggest you let her do a reading after the ceremony instead, at the dinner. Remember you will only have a finite amount of time in the ceremony itself to get everything done.

Yes I did have readings. It was a civil ceremony as my husband was divorced so a church wedding was out, but I wanted it to be as special as possible, and as pp noted, give a couple special friends a role as I didn't have bridesmaids. I can't recall them now but there were a couple poems, one selected by me, one by my husband. I don't think readings are tedious at all, and can give an insight into the couple.

We have a lovely photo of our guests all tearing up during my mum's reading at our wedding. Dmum was in floods herself, and I had to get up and give her a hug when she finished her reading, and take her back to her seat because she couldn't see for crying. (The photographer caught that moment as well.) It was just a cheesy reading at a civil ceremony, but it was emotional and lovely.

BTW that photo is not on display anywhere. I find it a lovely memory, but I would not offend the people I love by displaying a photo of them all crying!

We get married in August. Literature is a huge part of both our lives so we have chosen 2 poems that we love and sum up us as a couple.

I agree with the pp about making sure who you chose someone to read it who knows how to speak in public , especially if you have an outdoor ceremony.

But ifbyou don't want a reading then don't have one...don't let your mum railroad you.

We had a reading of a poem written by a friend's dad, so not anything anyone had heard before. Not sure I'd go for it again, but the two previous weddings I'd been to had singers - one a sibling absolutely murdering some opera, and the other was some acapella folk nonsense (think Four Weddings but without the guitar) Obviously not everyone in the hall had been to those two weddings so it didn't bring quite the same relief.

We had two. One that I'd wanted from being a teenager - Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 - which is very prosaic about love, the opposite of mushy.

The other we ended up picking because we'd already asked his gran to do a reading and desperately needed to find something.

Needless to say the audience liked the desperately picked one and were bemused by Sonnet 130, but I can't even remember the other one.

Which just goes to show - please yourself. They're your memories.

You could see it like that, but the male dinosaur is also described as tender and ‘also not unfond of shopping,’ and the female dinosaur is described as a free spirit which the male dinosaur admires, so I don’t think it’s entirely based on sexist stereotypes at all.

You are holding up the ceiling with both arms.
It is very heavy but you must hold it up or else it will fall down on you.
Your arms are tired,
Terrible tired,
And,
As the day goes on,
It feels as if either your arms
Or the ceiling
Will soon collapse.
But then,
Unexpectedly,
Something wonderful happens.
Someone, a man or a woman,
Walks into the room and holds their arms up to the ceiling beside you.
So you finally get to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
The blood flowing back to your fingers and arms,
And when your partner’s arms tire,
You hold up your own to relieve him again.
And it can go on like this for many years
Without the house falling down.
©Michael Blumenthal

Omg.... sorry that's got to be the cringiest thing I've read in such a long time......

Sorry what?! The dinosaur?? Seems like a story for 5 year olds no?

I read sonnet 116 at my friend's wedding. I actually quite like it as I think it's quite accessible for Shakespeare.

I learn it off by heart for the wedding, and 20+ years later I still remember every word (with peri-menopausal brain fog that's quite amazing). Wish I'd put the same effort in with my studies. 😜It got rave reviews from everyone, partly because they were stunned I knew it from memory (and didn't get a word wrong) and partly because I present as part of my job so I know how to project and command an audience. No-one noticed my hands shaking fortunately!

My friend had this one - was super!

All I Know About Love
BY Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.
Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze, and not to be alone.
It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you or send for the army to rescue them.
It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home because home is wherever you are both together.
So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing, like a book without pages or a forest without trees.
Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.
And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.
And that’s all I know about love.

@NigelHarmansNewWife

Came here to say just that!!!

OP - please consider using the lyrics to 'Ben' by Michael Jackson.

Extra marks if your DP is called Pete 🤣