Popular Readings For Wedding Ceremonies

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. ⁵ It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see each other face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.

This is everything I've learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,

and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,

and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,

is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,

and not to be alone.

It's not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it's what they mean.

Somebody's got your back.

Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn't want to rescue you

or send for the army to rescue them.

It's not two broken halves becoming one.

It's the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home

because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,

like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.

Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.

Because nobody else's love, nobody else's marriage, is like yours,

and it's a road you can only learn by walking it,

a dance you cannot be taught,

a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,

not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.

And your hands will meet, 

and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that's all I know about love.

“From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage. The lifelong union . . . always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. . . . Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.”

“The centrality of marriage to the human condition makes it unsurprising that the institution has existed for millennia and across civilizations. Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together. Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government. This wisdom was echoed centuries later and half a world away by Cicero, who wrote, "The first bond of society is marriage; next, children; and then the family.”

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. . . . Marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death.”

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 together. And you know what you know.
And you are the pair who’ll decide where to go.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And

what of Marriage, master?

  And he answered saying:

  You were born together, and together you

shall be forevermore.

  You shall be together when the white

wings of death scatter your days.

  Ay, you shall be together even in the

silent memory of God.

  But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

  And let the winds of the heavens dance

between you.

  Love one another, but make not a bond

of love:

  Let it rather be a moving sea between

the shores of your souls.

  Fill each other’s cup but drink not from

one cup.

  Give one another of your bread but eat

not from the same loaf.

  Sing and dance together and be joyous,

but let each one of you be alone,

  Even as the strings of a lute are alone

though they quiver with the same music.

  Give your hearts, but not into each

other’s keeping.

  For only the hand of Life can contain

your hearts.

  And stand together yet not too near

together:

  For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

  And the oak tree and the cypress grow

not in each other’s shadow.

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.

This is a special place, a place where people have brought beautiful living plants, here to establish them, to nurture and care for them, that they may forever surround us with the beauty we now see. And into this place where we stand, you have brought something beautiful — the relationship that is becoming your marriage. Here you are declaring it and pledging it, promising to establish and nurture it.

We are aware of the special beauty between the two of you, just as we are aware of the special beauty of this place. We are with you now in this appropriate place to celebrate your relationship as it is and as it is yet to be, and in doing so, we ask only that you remember how your life together will have the same seasons and needs as this garden.

There will be growth like Spring and loss like Fall; there will be giving as the blossoming flower, and rest as the seed beneath the snow. All the seasons will be yours, but remember, too, that gardens are not just happenings. The more wonderful the garden, the more skilled the gardener.

So you will have to care deeply for the life that is yours together, and nurture it. You will have to appreciate your differences and cultivate them. You will have to take care of yourself, if for no other reason than out of love for the other. And you will need the support of family and friends to reach full growth.

As you caringly chose this place to declare your marriage, so remember its lessons for your life together through the seasons that are yours to share. And may those seasons bring you and yours joy and happiness

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.