Wedding Readings to Set the Mood: Which Wedding Poem or Romantic Quotation Would be Right for You?

Wedding readings and quotations can set the mood, be it romantic, literary, traditional or contemporary, sentimental or instructive. Excerpts from Kahlil Gibran's, The Prophet (Love one another but make not a bond of love) are among the most popular wedding readings, but there are many others which are just as meaningful and perhaps more suitable.

Famous wedding poems or those penned by a friend can be used. There are no rules about what can and cannot be read at a wedding, but the readings should be appropriate to the style or theme of the wedding ceremony and the atmosphere you want to create.

Traditional Weddings Theme

“You must marry, or your life will be wasted. You have gone too far to retreat. I have not time for the tenderness, and the comradeship, and the poetry and the things that really matter and for which you marry.”

Unconventional Weddings

Favourite Romantic Songs

There are some beautiful old and new love songs which can be used as readings, for example The Rose which was sung by Bette Midler. There is no need to read the entire song, simply choose the verses which are most meaningful.

Weddings With a Whimsical Mood

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said a small tufty-haired wizard. 'We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls...'Do you William Arthur, take Fleur Isabelle...'

In the front row, Mrs Weasley and Madame Delacour were both sobbing quietly into scraps of lace.”

Jul 20, 2008 8:10 PM

wedding :

True Ways of Knowing By Norman Maccaig

Not an ounce excessive, not an inch too little,
Our easy reciprocations. You let me know
The way a boat would feel, if it could feel,
The intimate support of water.

The news you bring me has been news forever,
So that I understand what a stone would say
If only a stone could speak. Is it sad a grassblade
Can’t know how it is lovely?

It is said that you can’t know, except by hearsay
(My gossiping failing words) that you are the way
A water is that can clench its palm and crumple
A boat’s confiding timbers?

But that’s excessive, and too little. Knowing
The way a circle would describe its roundness,
We touch two selves and fed, complete and gentle,
The intimate support of being.

The way that flight would feel a bird flying
(If it could fed) is the way a space that’s in
A stone that’s in a water would know itself
If it had our way of knowing.

Atlas By U. A. Fanthorre

There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently ricketty elaborate
Structures of living; which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Tell Me By Elizabeth Jennings

Tell me where you go
When you look faraway.
I find I am too slow

To catch your mood. I hear
The slow and far-off sea
And waves that beat a shore

That could be trying to
Call us toward our end,
make us hurry through

This little space of dark.
Yet love can stretch it wide.
Each life means so much work

You are my wealth, my pride.
The good side of me, see
That you stay by my side

Two roots of one great tree.

more wedding ceremony readings: http://www.weddingreads.com/wedding_readings/