Non- cheesy wedding readings HELP

[hihihi87]

Hi lovely people, we are Getting married next week and we still haven't managed to come across anything that we like. My sister will be doing a reading and everything she's suggesting sounds cheesy.

So we've had a look and all I can say is .. cringe 😬

Can anyone recommend a good reading? That's romantic but not too much 😂

I'm not sure why I'm stressing. Most likely People aren't even going to listen 😂

TIA xxx

I like that one but not read by a kid.

I think having a anything read by a kid makes it 100x "cheesier"

This one is nice if allowed

If it is a civil wedding you are not allowed any religious content in the service so if it not a church wedding a Bible extract is not allowed.

We had this one too. And a Welsh one called Priodas.

Oh god. So many are cheesy.

If you are having a civil ceremony you cannot have anything religious, and this rules out (in my opinion) most of the non cheesy beautiful stuff. No, you can't have Corinthians if you're not getting married in a church .

Just whatever you do, don't have the one "I want to be your vacuum cleaner and hoover up your dust". it's gross. Read the lyrics.

That and a 1000 years as a walk in song makes up a significant number of the weddings I do though 😔

I really love Marriage by William Letford. It’s possibly best suited for a young couple (which you may be, OP!). I read it a my niece’s wedding and I love the simple romance of it.

We had dr Seuss ' the places you'll go'. Maybe not so romantic but worked for us ....

Sorry- paste fail! Need an edit button please Mumsnet!!

"Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And you are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there. With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down, any not-so-good street. And you may not find any you'll want to go down. In that
case, of course, you'll head straight out of town. It's opener there in the wide open air. Out there things can happen and frequently do, to people as brainy and footsy
as you.
And when things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along. You'll start happening too.
Oh, the places you'll go!"

Etc

This one says it all for me .

We had the Lovely Love Story and Union by Robert Fulghum

Union
by Robert Fulghum
You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way.
All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with
“I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late-night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.
All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.
The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”
Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.
For after today you shall say to the world –
This is my husband. This is my wife.

I love this by Dolly Alderton

www.lovemydress.net/blog/wedding-readings/everything-i-know-about-love-by-dolly-alderton

Another vote for Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, Let not to the marriage of true minds…

www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-planning/ceremony-and-reception/wedding-readings/
Lots of suggestions here and it is searchable by theme. Good luck I'm sure you will find something that sums up your relationship and is therefore the perfect one for you.

“Your marriage”, he said, “Should have within it A secret and protected place, open to you alone. Imagine it to be a walled garden, Entered by a door to which only you have the key. Within this garden you will cease to be a mother, father, employee, Homemaker or any other roles which you fulfil in daily life. Here you are yourselves, two people who love each other. Here you can concentrate on one another’s needs. So take my hand and let us go back to our garden. The time we spend together is not wasted but invested. Invested in our future and the nurture of our love”.

Anon

A Birthday
BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

And it’s pretty clear that none of these people have ever read the novel or there’s no way they’d use that extract.

Yeah. I always think..if only they had actually read the book

This one was on the shortlist for our wedding -

Letter from Johnny Cash to June Carter (1994)
‘We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others’ minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit.
Maybe sometimes take each other for granted. But once in a while, like today, I meditate on it and realise how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest person I ever met.’

We also had the Dolly Alderton one on the list, I loved it so much but I couldn't stop myself from welling up every time I read it, so had to go with another one!

seems a bit unfair. Corinthians actually lots of the bible is literature as well as religious. My daughter studied it in her literature class in high school.

this is very popular in Ireland

Scaffolding
Seamus Heaney - 1939-2013

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.

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
WB Yeats

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Excerpt from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman:

I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.

x

All I know about Love by Neil Gaiman can’t link

Oh wow thanks so much everyone. I wasn't expecting to get this many suggestions. Will read them all properly once in bed 😃

Thank you!!!!!!

Also to those asking.

Yes. I'd love to have a Christian reading but we are getting married at the venue and they have asked for non religious readings 😵‍💫

Not sure why.

What if it is Christian? What would they do? Cancel the marriage? 😂

Oh god, anything but the bloody twee dinosaurs.