MAWWAIGE

Dr. Frenchenstein · March 2011

So my friends have asked me to officiate their wedding since i am an internet minister and all the benefits it entails. I'd like a nice quick reading to offer to give the ceremony a little flavor. Unfortunately, i don't trust myself not to pick something inappropriately funny, so i'd like to play it mostly straight. So i turn to you PA folk. Heard any good wedding readings recently? or know of any? please share!

Quoth · March 2011

A MARRIAGE
By Michael Blumenthal

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner's arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

Icemopper · March 2011

I learned a lot from my brother's wedding:

Don't mention divorce.

Don't talk about how awesome your marriage/relationship/life is.

Don't talk about any of their faults.

And you actually know them, and you probably know the groom's name is not John, though it may start with a "J." So make it personal and caring, and you'll be fine!

amateurhour · March 2011

First off, congratulations on the honor that has been given to you. That's really awesome.

Second, why not make it a little more from the heart? I get that you want to play it straight, but your close friends have asked you to preside over this event, so it shouldn't be a canned statement. Are you just looking for a good foundation that you can add to and take away from?

If so, almost everything I just googled over the last 10 minutes was either biblical (which if they're letting you officiate doesn't seem like their style) or poetry.

Any more details on what you're looking to accomplish? Do you want it to be touching and sincere? Formal? Personal?

Dr. Frenchenstein · March 2011

were i eloquent enough i would write something on my own.

a lot of the stuff i've found over google are more like alternate vows, biblical, or poetry. I'm not trying to make anybody burst into tears or anything, i'd prefer it be humorous without being inappropriate, but it doesn't have to be.

I thought about a reading from the end of pooh's corner, but it sounded kinda depressing

seasleepy · March 2011

I know some people who used that scene from the Princess Bride, actually. They had the minister read it straight (no silly accent). Half the audience was giggling the whole time, and the other half of the audience was scandalized that people were laughing at the ceremony. They apparently still get phone calls periodically from people going "Oh my gosh, I finally understand your wedding now!"

Djeet · March 2011

"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."

-Khalil Gibran

I've also seen it quoted where it starts just at "Let there be spaces in your togetherness ..." to make it less religious sounding (I suppose), but I think the omission leaves a bit to be desired in the reading.

Are you looking for poetic vows, or for selections to read in addition to vows during the ceremony?

Dr. Frenchenstein · March 2011

just something to throw in the ceremony, i'd rather it not be something that it's every wedding (which Khalil Gibran is in a lot of them, same with colossians/other bible stuff)

i'd want it to be under a minute or a minute at most.

chuck steak · April 2011

Here are the two readings we had at our wedding in September:

"In the marriage ceremony, that moment when falling in love is replaced by the arduous drama of staying in love, the words "in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part" set love in the temporal context in which it achieves its meaning. As time begins to elapse, one begins to love the other because they have shared the same experience. Selves may not intertwine; but lives do, and shared memory becomes as much of a bond as the bond of the flesh. Family love is this dynastic awareness of time, this shared belonging to a chain of generations. We collaborate together to root each other in a dimension of time longer than our own lives."

and

“There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart. We were born with it, it is never completely satisfied, and it never dies. We are often unaware of it, but it is always awake. It is the human desire for love. Every person in this earth yearns to love, to be loved, to know love. Our true identity, our reason for being, is to be found in this desire...

...love is the ‘why’ of life: why we are functioning at all, what we want to be efficient for... I am convinced it, love, is the fundamental energy of the human spirit, the fuel on which we run, the wellspring of our vitality. And grace, which is the flowing, creative activity of love itself, is what makes all goodness possible. Love should come first; it should be the beginning of and the reason for everything.”

I found them by searching "atheist wedding" in google, so try that search if these are at all the type of thing you're looking for.

lonelyahava · April 2011

A friend used some Shel Silverstein at her wedding last summer. I know they started the ceremony with "If you are a dreamer" and I know there were two others, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were.

But they were kids poems taken to a whole new romantic level just due to the setting. Quite nice actually.

Icemopper · April 2011

lonelyahava wrote: »

A friend used some Shel Silverstein at her wedding last summer. I know they started the ceremony with "If you are a dreamer" and I know there were two others, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were.

But they were kids poems taken to a whole new romantic level just due to the setting. Quite nice actually.

I was just trying to think of something like this. You can easily take a children's poem, or a well recognized song lyric, and make it a romantic gesture. Of course, now that I'm really thinking hard about it, I have no options, but there you go.

Penny Arcade

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