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Choosing your wedding ceremony readings goes beyond mere words; it is a reflection of you and your partner’s unique connection, expressing your shared memories, dreams, and aspirations. Choosing the right wedding ceremony readings allows you to express your love in words as unique as your journey together.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the significance of including readings in your wedding ceremony, the different types of reading options available to you, tips for choosing the right readings for you, and how to incorporate them into your wedding ceremony.
Choosing Wedding Ceremony Readings
The Significance of Wedding Ceremony Readings
Of all the words spoken during a wedding ceremony, where vows are exchanged and promises made, wedding ceremony readings stand as powerful testaments to the couple’s unique love story, their shared experiences, values, and dreams.
Wedding ceremony readings infuse meaning and emotional resonance, offering a glimpse into the depth of the couple’s love and connection to each other, while infusing a bit of their personalities. Not just literary adornments, wedding readings are poignant expressions that elevate the ceremony from a ritual to a deeply personal and memorable experience.
Whether it’s a favorite poem, a passage from literature, a reading from scripture, or perhaps dialogue from a movie or lyrics from a favorite song, your readings inject your authentic voice, creating a moment that is not merely witnessed but deeply felt by all in attendance. In this way, wedding ceremony readings go beyond tradition, allowing you to craft a narrative that is distinctly your own, leaving an indelible mark on the hearts of those present.
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Why Have Wedding Ceremony Readings?
While readings are an optional part of a wedding ceremony, many couples choose to include them. Why do they do so? The answer is threefold:
1) Readings add a personal touch to the ceremony
They elevate even the simplest of ceremonies and are one of the easiest, and best ways to turn a generic ceremony script into something that truly expresses the individuals who are exchanging wedding vows. They add a distinctive touch to the ceremony.
2) Readings reflect the couple’s values, beliefs, and shared experiences
Carefully chosen wedding ceremony readings resonate with the couple’s shared experiences, values, and dreams, the ceremony becomes a reflection of their journey together.
3) Readings create a memorable and emotional experience for guests
While verses from scripture are a classic wedding ceremony reading choice, you and your partner may prefer a favorite poem, a passage from literature, or a quote, creating a unique experience for all.
Tips for Choosing the Perfect Wedding Ceremony Reading
Choosing the perfect wedding ceremony readings is a process that deserves some careful consideration so they add depth and personalization to your celebration.
Consideration your personalities
Start by considering your personalities, ensuring that the chosen readings resonate. There are many different reading types and sources, including scripture, secular, literary, funny, poetry, and movie quotes. (I’ve got some examples below).
Match the reading to the overall theme of the wedding
Do you have a theme for your wedding? While not required, why not align your ceremony readings to the overall wedding theme, whether it’s traditional, contemporary, or thematic, to maintain a cohesive narrative?
Consider the length for a well-paced ceremony
Length matters – too short, and guests will think they’ve missed something; too long and your guests can begin to lose focus and start looking at their watches. So be sure to strike a balance that ensures the ceremony flows seamlessly without becoming too lengthy.
Feel Your Love
Finally, don’t choose a reading just for the sake of having one. Instead, trust your instincts and opt for readings that genuinely move you, as the sincerity and authenticity of the chosen words will undoubtedly enhance the emotional impact of the ceremony.
Get Your Officiant’s Input
This is super important! Before you decide on any specific readings, check with your officiant and see if they have any guidelines or requirements that need to be followed. Some officiants, particularly if the ceremony will be held in a house of worship, do not permit secular readings.
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Types of Wedding Ceremony Readings
Wedding ceremony readings offer a diverse array of expressions, each bringing its own unique charm to the celebration. Couples can choose from:
Bible Verses for a Wedding Ceremony
Religious readings, drawing upon the wisdom and traditions of various faiths.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” (English Standard Version)
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it. (ESV)
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (ESV)
Other Religious or Spiritual Readings
Buddhist
(The Buddhist Scriptures, The Buddha’s Sermon at Rajagaha, Verses 19-22)
Do not deceive, do not despise each other anywhere. Do not be angry nor bear secret resentments; for as a mother will risk her life and watches over her child, so boundless be your love to all, so tender, kind and mild.
Cherish good will right and left, early and late, and without hindrance, without stint, be free of hate and envy, while standing and walking and sitting down, what ever you have in mind, the rule of life that is always best is to be loving-kind.
Hindu
(The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad; Selected Verses)
“A wife loves her husband not for his own sake, dear one, but because the Divine Beloved lives in him. A Husband loves his wife not for her own sake, dear one, but because the Divine Beloved lives in her. Children are loved not for their own sake, dear one, but because the Divine Beloved lives in them… All things are loved not for their own sake, but because the Divine Beloved lives in them. The Divine Beloved must be realized. Hearing about and meditating upon the Divine Beloved, you will come to understand everything in life…
As long as there is the sense of separateness, one sees another as separate from oneself… But when the Divine Beloved is realized as the indivisible unity of life, who can be seen by whom…who can be spoken to by whom, who can be thought of by whom, who can be known by whom?”
Confucianism and Taoism
(I Ching)
“When two people are at one
in their inmost hearts,
they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.
And when two people understand each other
in their inmost hearts,
their words are sweet and strong,
like the fragrance of orchids.”
Muslim
(The Koran)
“O believers, be in awe of God,
and believe in His Messenger,
and He will give you a twofold portion of His mercy,
and He will appoint for you a light
whereby you shall walk, and forgive you;
God is All-Forgiving, All-Compassionate;
that the People of the Book may know
that they have no power over anything of God’s bounty,
and that bounty is in the hand of God;
He gives it unto whomsoever He will;
and God is of bounty abounding.”
Poems and Literature
Poetry and literature are filled with words that evoke the lovely emotions and feelings that describe weddings and marriage.
From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
I have for the first time found what I can truly love – I have found you. You are my sympathy – my better self – my good angel; I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you – and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
‘Sonnet XVII’ by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
From The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life … You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you.
Quotes from Movies and Television
The Wedding Singer
“I want to make you smile whenever you’re sad. Carry you around when your arthritis is bad. All I want to do is grow old with you. I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches. Build you a fire if the furnace breaks. Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you. I’ll miss you, Kiss you, Give you my coat when you are cold. Need you, Feed you, Even let you hold the remote control. So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink. Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink. I could be the man who grows old with you. I want to grow old with you.”
Sex and the City
‘His hello was the end of her endings.
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle.
His hand would be hers to hold forever.
His forever was as simple as her smile.
He said she was what was missing.
She said instantly she knew.
She was a question to be answered.
And his answer was “I do.”’
Star Trek Voyager
“Commander, I don’t think you can analyze love. It’s the greatest mystery of all. No one knows why it happens or doesn’t. Love is a chance combination of elements. Any one thing might be enough to keep it from igniting — a mood, a glance, or a remark. And if we could define love, predict it, it would probably lose its power.” ~ Neelix (S4, E22 “Unforgettable”)
How to Incorporate Readings into the Ceremony
When to Do Wedding Ceremony Readings
Incorporating readings into the wedding ceremony is not as difficult as it may seem. Generally they are done after the officiant gives a welcome or greeting to the guests and before the actual rite of marriage (declaration of intent, vows, exchange of rings, etc.).
One or two readings at the most is best. Do too many, and the ceremony will start to drag on.
Who Does the Readings
Ask a special friend or two to do your readings. It’s the perfect way to involve others and adds a special touch to the day. (Note: Make sure that the people you ask are comfortable with reading aloud in front of a group, and have a good speaking voice which can easily be heard by all, including those seated in the back).
Conclusion
Carefully selected readings serve as more than mere linguistic adornments – they are the heartbeats of a ceremony, resonating with the unique cadence of each couple’s love story.
As you embark on this journey of a lifetime, may your ceremony readings become timeless echoes, forever woven into the fabric of shared memories, and a melodic reminder of the love declared and celebrated on this joyous day.
