How do you choose the right reading, or poem, for your wedding ceremony? If you are more of a traditional person, you may opt for something serious. If your emotions may get the better of you during your ceremony, then you may want to consider a more lighthearted reading. It may be just what you need to help you regain your composure.

Selecting a reader is just as important as selecting the reading itself. This is an opportunity to include someone in your wedding that wasn't a choice for a bridesmaid or groomsmen. You may want to consider aunts, uncles, college friends, childhood friends, nieces, nephews, or cousins. The choice is completely yours. If you would like to have someone read that won't be able to attend, or who would not be comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, you could have them record your selected reading in advance and have the reading played back during your ceremony. Armistead Events DJs provide such services.

Below are some sample readings and poems that could be used for your wedding ceremony. For more suggestions contact an Armistead Events Wedding Consultant or Marriage Celebrant.

Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Faith...Hope...Love...these three but the greatest of these is love.

The Art of a Good 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 the gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is not looking for perfection in each other. It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor. 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.

The Key To Love
The key to love is understanding. The ability to comprehend not only the spoken word, but those unspoken gestures, the little things that say so much by themselves. The key to love is forgiveness to accept each others faults and pardon mistakes, without forgetting, but with remembering what you learn from them. The key to love is sharing. Facing your good fortunes as well as the bad, together; both conquering problems, forever searching for ways to intensify your happiness. The key to love is giving without thought of return, but with the hope of just a simple smile, and by giving in but never giving up. The key to love is respect realizing that you are two separate people, with different ideas; that you don’t belong to each other, that you belong with each other, and share a mutual bond.The key to love is inside us all. It takes time and patience to unlock all the ingredients that will take you to its threshold; it is the continual learning process that demands a lot of work, but the rewards are more than worth the effort. That is the key to love.

What is Love? by Walter Rinder
Love is just not looking at each other and saying "You're wonderful". There are times when we are anything but wonderful. Love is looking out in the same direction. It is linking our strength to pull a common load. It is pushing together towards the far horizons, hand in hand. Love is knowing that when our strength falters, we can borrow the strength of someone who cares. Love is a strange awareness that our sorrows will be shared and made lighter by sharing; that joys will be enriched and multiplied by the joy of another. Love is knowing someone else cares that we are not alone in life.

Scottish Wedding Prayer
Lord help us to remember when we first met and the strong love that grew between us.
Help us work that love into practical things so that nothing can divide us.
We ask for words both kind and loving and hearts always ready to ask forgiveness as well as to forgive.
Dear Lord, we put our marriage into your hands.

Hawaiian Wedding Prayer
Lord, be the cord that binds our marriage, for a strand of three cords is not easily broken. Show us the way to keep our mutual respect brightly polished. May faith brighten our home, forgiveness adorn our hearts and words of kindness be our language. Help us entwine our friendship with the hopes and dreams we brought to our wedding. We commit our marriage to you, Lord.

From "The New Jewish Wedding" by Anita Diamant
“We acknowledge the Unity of all within the sovereignty of God, expressing our appreciation for this wine, symbol and aid of our rejoicing. We acknowledge the Unity of all within the sovereignty of God, realizing that each separate moment and every distinct object points to and shares in this oneness. We acknowledge the Unity of all within the sovereignty of God, recognizing and appreciating the blessing of being human. We acknowledge the Unity of all within the sovereignty of God, realizing the special gift of awareness that permits us to perceive this unity and the wonder we experience as a man and a woman joined to live together. May rejoicing resound throughout the world as the homeless are given homes, persecution and oppression cease, and all people learn to live in peace with each other and in harmony with their environment. From the Divine, source of all energy, we call forth an abundance of love to envelop this couple. May they be for each other lovers and friends, and may their love partake of the same innocence, purity, and sense of discovery that we imagine the first couple to have experienced. We acknowledge the Unity of all within the sovereignty of God, and we highlight today joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, delight and cheer, love and harmony, peace and companionship. May we all witness the day when the dominant sounds through the world will be these sounds of happiness, the voices of lovers, the sounds of feasting and singing. Praised is love; blessed be this marriage. May the bride and bridegroom rejoice together."

Traditional Irish Blessing
May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.May God be with you and bless you; may you see your children's children. May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.

May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home and may the hand of a friend always be near. May green be the grass you walk on, may blue be the skies above you. May pure be the joys that surround you and may true be the hearts that love you.

Wedding Prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson
Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank you for this place in which we dwell, for the love that unites us, for the peace accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow, for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Amen

Marriage by Mary Weston Fordham
The die is cast, come weal, come woe, two lives are joined together. For better or for worse, the link which naught but death can sever. The die is cast, come grief, come joy, come richer, or come poorer if love but binds the mystic tie, blest is the bridal hour.

"Sonnet from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 candlelight. 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.

Armistead Events - (434) 665-1792