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Readings from scripture, poetry or other writings provide inspiration and insight while adding a richness to your ceremony.
The celebrant usually reads the chosen reading(s), although an experienced person from among the family or guests may also be an appropriate reader.
Some favourite readings for weddings collected by Barrie Mason
I've collected some of my favourite readings here. Please feel free to call me on 09-489-6288 for others you may know of, or from my wider collection.
Of Marriage
Marriage is the union of two souls in a strong love for the abolishment of separateness. It is that higher unity which fuses the separate unities within the two spirits. It is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance, and whose ending is Eternity. It is the pure rain that falls from an unblemished sky to fructify and bless the fields of divine Nature.
As the first glance from the eyes of the beloved is like a seed sown in the human heart, and the first kiss of her lips like a flower upon the branch of the Tree of Life, so the union of two lovers in marriage is like the first fruit of the first flower of that seed.
- Kahlil Gibran
I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be.
I love you not so much for your realities as for you ideals. I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little.
A satisfied flower is one whose petals are about to fall. The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire are working for larger and finer growth.
Not always shall you be what you are now.
You are going forward toward something great.
I am on the way with you, and therefore I love you.
- Carl Sandburg
On Marriage
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of heaven 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.
- Kahlil Gibran
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool
Though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- William Shakespear
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace,
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience – it looks for a way of being constructive.
It is not prossesive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
It is not touchy. It does not compile statistics of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people.
On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope: it can outlast anything.
It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
- I Corinthians 13:1-8
Intreat me not to leave thee,
And to return from following after thee:
For wither thou goest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God;
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried:
The Lord do so to me,
And more also,
If aught but death part thee and me.
- Ruth 1:16-17
What greater thing
Is there
For two human souls
Than to feel that they
Are joined for life –
To strengthen each other
In all labour,
To rest on each other
In all sorrow,
To minister
To each other
In all pain,
And to be
With each other
In silent
Unspeakable memories…..
- George Elliot
There is no peace
Without harmony
No harmony
Without music
There is no music
Without song
No song
Without beauty
There is no beauty
Without laughter
No laughter
Without joy
There is no joy
Without kindness
No kindness
Without caring
No caring
Without love
No love
Without you
- Leonard Nimoy
Now you will feel no rain
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now you will feel no loneliness
For each of you will be companionship to the other.
Now you are two persons
But there is only one life between you.
Go now to your dwelling place
To enter into the days of your life together.
- American Indian Wedding Prayer
Look to this day
For it is life
The very life of life
In its brief course lie all
The realities and truths of existence
The joy of growth
The splendour of action
The glory of power
For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today well lived
Makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope
Look well, therefore to this day!
- ancient Sanskrit poem
Yes, I’ll Marry you, My Dear
Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear, and here’s the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed when the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking and it’s creepy and it’s late,
I'll hand you the torch to see, and you investigate.
Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear, you may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-dryer goes, it’s you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour should our Labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me, it’s you that has to whack him.
Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear, you’re virile and you’re lean,
My house is like a pigsty, you can help to keep it clean,
That little sexy dinner which you served by candlelight,
As I just do chipolatas, you can cook it every night!
It’s you who has to work the drill and put up the curtain track,
And when I’ve got the PMT it’s you who get the flak,
I do see great advantages, but none of them for you,
And so before you see the light, I do, I do, I do!
- Pam Ayers
The Art of a Good Marriage
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 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 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.
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 person, it is being the right partner.
- Wilfred Arian Peterson
Let Love be Genuine
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
Love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honour.
Never lag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.
Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another; practice hospitality;
do not be haughty, neither be conceited.
Repay to no one evil for evil, but take thought of what is noble in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.
- Romans 12:9-18
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
Be yourself, especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is perennial as the grass.
Be gentle with yourselves;
you are the children of the universe no less that the trees and stars.
Be at peace with God whatever you conceive Him to be
and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your souls and strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann … a condensation
True Love
True love is a sacred flame that burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow
Or change its destiny.
True love speaks in tender tones
And hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart
And true love conquers fear.
True love makes no harsh demands
It neither rules nor binds,
And true love holds with gentle hands
The hearts that it entwines.
- Anon
Love – a Gift from the Sea
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time,
in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.
It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand
We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.
We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return.
We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity;
when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom,
in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass,
but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing,
not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even.
Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia,
nor forward to what it might be in dread or in anticipation,
but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now,
within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea,
and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.
- from “Gift From the Sea” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Apache Blessing
May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries
and the breeze blow new strength into your being.
And all the days of your life may you walk
gently through the world and know its beauty.
Friends
Today I marry my best friend
The one I have laughed and cried with
The one I have learned from and shared with
The one I have chosen to support,
encourage and give myself to
through all the days given us to share.
Today I marry the one I love.
- Anon
The Depth of Love
Had I not known the depth of love
Life would have been the poorer –
But with the happiness it brings
Nothing could be surer.
For love is – just relaxing,
And trusting, and believing,
Just the very simple process
Of giving and receiving.
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