Wedding Ceremony Readings

“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 blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

~ Louis de Bernières (Excerpt from “Captain Corelli's Mandolin”)

Your marriage 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

Hold the key.

Within this garden you will cease to be

A mother, father, employee, homemaker

Or any other of the 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

Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past. It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.

~Laura Hendricks

People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret  rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks,  but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse  of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden  places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there,  even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves. 

~Hilary T. Smith

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

~ Pablo Neruda 

Within this blessed union of souls, where two hearts intertwine to become one, there lies a promise. Perfectly born, divinely created, and intimately shared, it is a place where the hope and majesty of beginnings reside. Where all things are made possible by the astounding love shared by two spirits. As you hold each other’s hands in this promise, and eagerly look into the future in each other’s eyes, may your unconditional love and devotion take you to places were you’ve both only dreamed. Where you’ll dwell for a lifetime of happiness, sheltered in the warmth of each other’s arms. 

~ Heather Berry

The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.

Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, 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 beaming in the very depths of heaven. 

~ Victor Hugo 

Together

Two trees near to each other stood
When they were young and life was new.
Their limbs reach out and their branches entwine
And thus together they grew.
Their roots spread out down under the ground
Joining one with the other,
So, from the top in the sky to the heart
In the earth-the two were joined together.
Thru days when the sun was bright and warm
And the winds were temperamental
When a laughing breeze rustled the leave,
Or when the rain was soft and gentle.
Thru days when the clouds were dark and gray
And cold and fierce the weather
The two stood firm and faced the storms
Because they stood together.

~ Jo Lynn Wood

The little things are the big things.

It is never being too old to hold hands.

It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.

It is never taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with

the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.

It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is standing together facing the world.

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice,

but in the spirit of joy.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in

thoughtful ways.

It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of

an angel.

It is not looking for perfection in each other.

It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is finding room for the things of the spirit.

It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal,

dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.

It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

~ Wilfred Arlan Peterson

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be  a universe of beaches… I have stayed these years in my hovel because of  you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body  strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have  lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might  glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the  sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have  not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There  has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking  eyelids…

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I…

I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every  time you said, ‘Farm Boy, do this’, you thought I was answering, ‘As you  wish’, but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was  what it was, but you never heard.”

~ William Goldman

Marriage is not a house or even a tent 

It is before that, and colder: 

The edge of the forest, the edge of the desert 

The unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside, eating popcorn 

The edge of the receding glacier, where painfully, and with wonder, at having survived even this far, 

We are learning to make fire.

​~ Margaret Atwood