Tell me your favourite poetry/ prose for wedding readings?

[Laugs]

Nothing too sacharine sweet or too 'poetic'

20th/21st century if poss

Preferably pieces people haven't heard before

A bit of humour wouldn't go amiss.

I have an MA in modern literature, so people will have expectations of me!

I'm doing a reading at my best friends wedding in two months and am so scared.

Her husband to be is in a band, and their latest hit was written for her, would it be tacky to read that? Maybe I should ask him, rather than you lol.

crochetdiva - you can't have khalil gibran at a civil wedding so would be no good unless laugs is getting married in a church.

sorry - didn't realise - thanks for setting me straight, slayerette ... what are the rules for readings at a civil wedding?

Oh well, just Ian Dury as a suggestion, instead!

WH Auden - o tell me the truth about love

or the owl & the pussycat

We had a full on traditional serious wedding - beautiful 'serious' music and then a Wendy Cope reading which lightened the mood somewhat.

This one - it kind of summed up our early 'courtship'

After the Lunch
-Wendy Cope

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove,
And try not to notice I've fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge, I am trying to think,
"This is nothing - you're high on the charm and the drink."
But the jukebox inside me is playing a song,
That says something different, and when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair,
I am tempted to skip. "You're a fool." I don't care.
The head does it's best, but the heart is the boss,
I admit it before I am halfway across.

The Confirmation, by Edwin Muir
THE CONFIRMATION

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,
What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,
A well of water in a country dry,
Or anything that's honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world seem bright. Your open heart,
Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,
The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.
Not beautiful or rare in every part.
But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

crochetdiva - not sure what the rules are really, but we asked to have that exact reading you quoted (it's gorgeous!) for our wedding and the registrar said we weren't allowed anything that implied any kind of religion since we were having a civil ceremony .

Oooh Habbibu - We loved that poem so much, i had it at mine too... was perfect for us followed by a recording of m & w Bring me Sunshine to ground it. Happy daze...

Love Is by Adrian Henri is a nice one, also this which is sometimes called the Code Poem and was used by the French Resistance but is lovely in its own right.
AFAIK Khalil Gibran is OK for secular weddings, depends on the individual registrar I think. He's OK for humanist weddings (though preferably not ones I am conducting as he makes me want to spew).

Oh and here is the Adrian Henri

"And if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side, such a heavenly way to die....and if a ten tonne truck kills the both of us, to die by your side, well the pleasure the privilege is mine" There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths, if you want something a bit more way out!

I also like the "let me be your ford cortina, I will never rust" poem by John Cooper Clark.

But for romance, it has to be Donne "The Good Morrow" or something lovely by Brian Patten.