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Get tips on theatre and art from other Mumsnetters on our Culture forum.

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Get tips on theatre and art from other Mumsnetters on our Culture forum.

Culture vultures

Reading for a wedding?

38 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 17/02/2007 09:50

DH has been asked to do a reading at a wedding. Middlebrow wanted. He'd rather have prose than a poem. I'd like it to be something we might conceivably have read ... part of me is wanting to dig through Mother's Milk, but I suspect it might be a wee bit cynical?

Lovely couple, we really like them.

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tiredemma · 17/02/2007 10:05

I love this one from Captain Corellis mandolin- tis about enduring lurve....

Love is..

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 roots have 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 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 blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:19

Hmmm, I like the quote, but am not a fan of Captain Corelli that much ... maybe I can find something in a Sebastian Faulks?

Ideally, it should be something DH would actually read, but unless hard SF or computer manuals are likely to have something relevant ...

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tassis · 18/02/2007 20:23

something from the Bible? 1 corinthians 13?

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:24

Hmmm, they're atheist, we're atheist. Probably not exactly the ticket ... it would surprise them, though.

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ShowOfHands · 18/02/2007 20:29

I know you said preferably prose but the poem DH read at our wedding has a very interesting story attached to it here

The Life That I Have (Leo Marks)

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

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tassis · 18/02/2007 20:29

probably not a good idea then!

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Lio · 18/02/2007 20:30

Is the Velveteen Rabbit not middle-enough-brow? Btw, you might know this already but if it's a civil ceremony (i.e. not church) you can't mention god anyway.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

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Donk · 18/02/2007 20:33

How about something from 'The Prophet' (Kahlil Gibran)?

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Donk · 18/02/2007 20:33

Mind you, if you can't mention God your quotes would have to be very selective!

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:34

I don't know if this reading is during the service, or what. I will ask.

The Velveteen Rabbit is quite tempting. Will show that to DH.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:44

DH totally doesn't 'get' the Velveteen Rabbit quote. I am married to a philistine. Maybe if the quote was about a velveteen robot?

Oh, I like the Leo Marks poem, but it seems more like something DH would want to read to express deep abiding romantic love for one of the people being married? Which isn't where we're going ...

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MrsBadger · 18/02/2007 20:47

Have a rather good one from Victor Hugo lying around somewhere

[rummages]
freely translated from Les Miserables :

Love is part of the soul itself - it is of the same nature. Like the soul, it is a divine spark; like the soul, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it shining in the very depths of heaven. All things are contained in love, and those who love will understand how to find them there. Without love, the sun itself would falter and grow dark.

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Lio · 18/02/2007 20:49

Ha ha at Velveteen Robot

A fellow MN-er had it at her wedding (pre her MN days) and it was lovely.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:50

Hmm, now I'm digging up Archy and Mehitabel poems, but I think that's too jokey.

They are counting on us for middle-brow, I'm not sure Victor Hugo quite cuts it, does he?

DH is also muttering something about it being about marriage, not love

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:50

I'm all teary-eyed from the Velveteen Rabbit quote, and having to explain it to DH. [boggle]

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MrsBadger · 18/02/2007 20:52

oh, middlebrow, is it?

Pam Ayres?

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Marina · 18/02/2007 20:53

I love that poem ShowofHands.

NQC there is always that lovely EBB sonnet

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment...

But that is verse, of course.

We have a good book "For all occasions" compiled by erudite ac-TOR Peter Barkworth at work, I'll look and see what he suggests for weddings.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:57

Um, not sure about that one, MrsB.

My first thought was Ogden Nash, so I am obviously not serious enough.

To Keep Your Marriage Brimming
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong admit it;
Whenever you're right shut up.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:59

Um, Marina, isn't that one by Shakespeare? That's what my googling is finding ... This is obviously some sort of abstruse librarian joke?

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 20:59

(hijack: how goes the pregnancy, and the beating up of medical professionals, MrsB?)

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MrsBadger · 18/02/2007 21:10

meh - am much calmer and feeling the need to do less beating, kind of you to ask though.
Have also enlisted FIL and his professorship, which is helping a bit, and am writing to make a personal appt with the consultant.

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 21:13

Ah, that's a pity, I was enjoying the idea of you wandering about in your lab coat, grabbing medics and banging their heads together, three stooges style. Probably not that much fun for you though.

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MrsBadger · 18/02/2007 21:15

do keep enjoying the idea - in fact I have a meeting in London in a couple of weeks where I get to do just that, only in my professional capacity, which will be fun...

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NotQuiteCockney · 18/02/2007 21:17

What part of London? I'd come join you for a coffee if it fits with my life ... (I have a book about syphillis for you [tempting emoticon])

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MrsBadger · 18/02/2007 21:20

Chelsea - not your end I don't think, but the syphilis offer is tempting - will email

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