Ceremony Readings to Inspire You

 

 

Ceremony readings are a great way to add some intention in your ceremony and couples often find them a great way to include someone they love into the most important part of their day. After all, this is the moment that brings everyone together.

We are sharing 6 of our favorites below, but here are a few great resources to get you thinking. And when you’re finished browsing, go tell your fiance your favorite one and tell him/her why.

15 nonreligious readings from June Bug Weddings

11 Unexpected Readings from Martha Stewart Weddings

Ceremony Readings from the Knot

“Love is an Adventure” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops like the universe itself only by perpetual discovery. The only right love is that between couples whose passion leads them both, one through the other, to a higher possession of their being. Put your faith in the spirit which dwells between the two of you. You have each offered yourself to the other as a boundless field of understanding, of enrichment, of mutually increased sensibility. You will meet above all by entering into and constantly sharing one another’s thoughts, affections, and dreams. There alone, as you know, in spirit, which is arrived through flesh, you will find no disappointments, no limits. There alone the skies are ever open for your love; there alone lies the great road ahead.”

An excerpt from a Mark Twain novel:

A marriage makes of two fractional lives a whole;

It gives two purposeless lives a work,

And doubles the strength of each to perform it.

It gives to two questioning natures a reason for living

And something to live for.

It will give new gladness to the sunshine,

A new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth

And a new mystery to life.

Tyler Knott Gregson:

A love letter from a soldier:

Section Historique de l’Armee de Terre, 1Kt T458, Correspondance entre le soldat Paul Pireaud et son espouse, 10 janvier 1910-1927, Letter from Paul Pireaud to Marie Andrieux 28 February 1918.

‘My beloved,

I have never seen you so sweet so good so lovable and so confident

just the way I have wanted so often(.)

(W)ithout doubt you understood my dream(s) and my desires(,)

you could not imagine how happy that makes me

how happy you make me and how I love you

(T)here is no need for you to be afraid(.)

with hearts like ours nothing will ever tire them and nothing will break them

our love will keep us forever young

(A) love like the one I have for you will never die

even on the threshold of old age for me you will still be the young girl who charmed me

who made my heart beat hard

and who brought me such feelings of happiness

you will always be the one I love and that I will love forever with all my heart’

*Edits were mine for clarity and pacing.”

—prophetissima

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing ,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Every Day by David Levithan

“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.”

An Excerpt from The Art Of Marriage by Wilferd Arlan Peterson

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.

A good marriage must be created. In marriage 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 at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through 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 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 looking for perfection in each other.

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

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

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

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.