WEDDING READINGS, WORDS & POEMS
What are the words that makes your heart sing, melt, warm, expand? Let your readings echo your heart’s joy / desire / courage.
Your wedding ceremony is a threshold and in this threshold you are tone and compass setting for your journey ever onwards - chose wisely, kindly and honestly - what are you committing to?
Are there poems from your ancestral lands? [For me that would be Scotland, Wales or Ireland].
Maybe you or someone you know could write a bespoke something…?
Are there films you love and quote from?
Are there books you delight in?
Song lyrics also make great poems . . .
Or perhaps one of the poems below rings true to you and yours?
These offerings are a starting point.
Happy reading, feeling, finding!
DON’T HESITATE BY MARY OLIVER
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
ALL ABOUT LOVE BY BELL HOOKS
A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.
Searching for the perfect ceremony reading to reflect you and your partner on your wedding day? From lighthearted poems to heartfelt romantic excerpts, we've compiled a list of thoughtful ceremony readings with LGBTQ+ weddings in mind. Featuring passages written by LGBTQ+ authors and love letters with gender neutral language, check out our 10 wonderful LGBTQ+ wedding ceremony readings below to include in your special day with pride and joy.
LGBTQ+ Wedding Ceremony Readings
Photo by Wojciech Koza Photography via One Fab Day
Dear One by Mary Lambert
Where did you come from, bright star?
What heaven did you leap from, dear love?
How can I spell your name
Without the sound of Autumn
Underneath my tongue,
Without acknowledging the lovers who bent me in half
Bless them for bringing me to you
How can I say your name
Without also breathing the words
My god, I found you.
How can I ever speak again with this mouth
When it has found where it belongs
When you touch me, I am a bed of calla lilies
I will build a house and fill it with evergreens
I will paint sunsets on every wall
So you can only see beautiful things
How can I say love
Without wanting to fold myself into you
Like a thousand paper cranes?
Dear one,
I was halved the moment I was born
Either piece of me is inside of your mouth
And I was found whole the moment you spoke.
Photo by The Portrait Room Via One Fab Day
I Belong In Your Arms by Deborah Brideau
Finally I have found a place
Into which I fit perfectly, safely and securely
With no doubts, no fears, no sadness, no tears.
This place is filled with happiness and laughter,
Yet it is spacious enough to allow me the freedom to move around, To live my life and be myself.
This wonderful place, which I never believed really existed,
I have found, finally,
Inside your arms, Inside your heart, Inside your love
You are the Bubbles by Rachel Bright
Together, you are the bubbles in one another’s champagne
The morning sun through a window
The breaking of a smile.
Together, you are the one doughnut in the bag with more jam than all the others.
That photo where everybody looks great.
The know-all-the-words, sing-out-of-tune chorus of your favourite song.
Together, you are the beginnings of a big idea.
The twinkly bits that hang in the sky after the firework goes bang.
The cold, thin air at the top of a mountain.
The only two people in a crowded room.
Together, you are that unforgettable day of the holiday.
An accidental adventure.
Chocolate chip.
The last two pages of your favourite book.
A BBQ with friends.
The spray of the sea.
The nose of the cheese.
A kiss.
A hug.
A hold-my-hand.
A decision which, looking back, will seem to be the most excellent one you’ve ever made.
Together you are bubbles.
The unburstable bubbles of the very best things in life.
The only things any of us ever really need.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See by Oscar Wilde
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!
All About Love by bell hooks
The moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom... When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.
An Excerpt from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.
TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL BY MAYA ANGELOU
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Living Together by david whyte
We are like children in the master’s violin shop
not yet allowed to touch the tiny planes or the rare wood
but given brooms to sweep the farthest corners
of the room, to gather shavings, mop spilled resins
and watch with apprehension the tender curves
emerging from apprenticed hands. The master
rarely shows himself but whenever he does he demonstrates
a concentrated ease so different from the willful accumulation
of experience we have come to expect,
a stripping away, a direct appreciation of all the elements
we are bound, one day, to find beneath our hands.
He stands in our minds so clearly now, his confident back
caught in the light from pale clerestory windows
and we note the way the slight tremor of his palms
disappears the moment they encounter wood.
In this light we hunger for maturity, see it not as stasis
but a form of love. We want the stillness and confidence
of age, the space between self and all the objects of the world
honoured and defined, the possibility that everything
left alone can ripen of its own accord,
all passionate transformations arranged only
through innocent meetings, one to another,
the way we see resin allowed to seep into the wood
in the wood’s own secret time. We intuit our natures
becoming resonant with one another according
to the grain of the way we are made. Nothing forced
or wanted until it ripens in our own expectant hands.
But for now, in the busy room, we stand in the child’s
first shy witness of one another, and see ourselves again,
gladly and always, falling in love with our future.
i climb into my bathtub the same way i fell in love with you BY MARIA GIESBRECHT
dipping my toes in and then all at once / which
is to say
i know nothing of slowness
which is to say it doesn’t feel right
until i’m fully submerged – ever!
i climb into my bathtub the same way i’ll keep
loving
you / until my skin is wrinkled
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
I know that love can be loud and jubilant…It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting “YOU ARE AMAZING” over the band. It’s introducing them to your colleagues at a work event and basking in pride as they make people laugh and make you look lovable just by dint of being loved by them.
It’s laughing until you wheeze.
It’s waking up in a country neither of you have been in before.
It’s skinny-dipping at dawn. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.
It’s a big, beautiful, ebullient force of nature.
I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing.
It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting.
It’s hanging up their laundry when they leave the house having moronically forgotten to take it out of the washing machine.
It’s saying ‘You’re safer here than in a car’ as they hyperventilate on an EasyJet flight to Dublin.
It’s the texts: ‘Hope your day goes well’, ‘How did today go?’, ‘Thinking of you today’ and ‘Picked up loo roll’.
I know that love happens under the splendour of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport, or in a traffic jam.
Love is a quiet, reassuring, relaxing, pottering, pedantic, harmonious hum of a thing; something you can easily forget is there, even though its palms are outstretched beneath you in case you fall.
You are the Bubbles by Rachel Bright
Together, you are the bubbles in one another’s champagne
The morning sun through a window
The breaking of a smile.
Together, you are the one doughnut in the bag with more jam than all the others.
That photo where everybody looks great.
The know-all-the-words, sing-out-of-tune chorus of your favourite song.
Together, you are the beginnings of a big idea.
The twinkly bits that hang in the sky after the firework goes bang.
The cold, thin air at the top of a mountain.
The only two people in a crowded room.
Together, you are that unforgettable day of the holiday.
An accidental adventure.
Chocolate chip.
The last two pages of your favourite book.
A BBQ with friends.
The spray of the sea.
The nose of the cheese.
A kiss.
A hug.
A hold-my-hand.
A decision which, looking back, will seem to be the most excellent one you’ve ever made.
Together you are bubbles.
The unburstable bubbles of the very best things in life.
The only things any of us ever really need.
Life Is Not A Journey EXTRACT FROM AN ESSAY BY ALAN WATTS
Our existence is musical in nature.
Music as an art form is essentially playful.
You play the piano, you do not “work” the piano.
Why?
Well, music differs from say, travel.
When you travel you are trying to get somewhere.
And we are all too often busy getting everywhere faster & faster & faster.
In music though, one doesn’t make the end of the composition, the point of the composition.
If that were so, the best conductors would be those who played the fastest.
And there would be composers who only wrote finales.
It is the same when dancing, you don’t aim for one particular spot in the room.
And when you get there, you say, “I’ve arrived”.
The point of dancing is the dance.
And we must remember to dance while the music is playing.
I WANT A LOVE THAT DOESN’T BREAK BY yung pueblo
I want a love that doesn't break
one that gives me water
when I am consumed by fire
one that offers me shelter
when I am lost
one that helps me see
that the hero
I am looking for
is me.
Ian Duhig - BRIDLED VOWS
I will be faithful to you, I do vow
but not until the seas have all run dry
etcetera: although I mean it now,
I'm not a prophet and I will not lie.
To be your perfect wife, I could not swear;
I'll love, yes; honour (maybe); won't obey,
but will co-operate if you will care
as much as you are seeming to today.
I'll do my best to be your better half,
but I don't have the patience of a saint;
not with you, at you I may sometimes laugh,
and snap too, though I'll try to learn restraint.
We might work out: no blame if we do not.
With all my heart, I think it's worth a shot.
Marriage BY WILLIAM LETFORD
I could take this opportunity
to wish you love and happiness
but you've already got that.
No, my wish for you
is the incidental, the ordinary,
to know someone
by the way their fork moves across a plate,
to see the majesty in someone's back, sleeping.
My wish for you
is twenty thousand mornings
climbing out of bed together.
My wish for you
is twenty thousand sunsets
that you can't see
because the curtains are closed and
you're sitting in a room talking about
nothing in particular.
Let the special occasions
take care of themselves,
learn to recognise
the wonder in the everyday.
My wish for you is a life lived together
filled with breakfasts, suppers, spoons and pillows.
Ann Gray - LOVE LISTEN
Let's love, listen, take time
when time is all we have.
Let's be unafraid to be kind,
learn to disregard the bad
if the good outweighs it daily.
Let's make a gift of silence,
the day's hushing into dark,
and when we hold each other
let's always be astonished
we are where we want to be.
Let's hope to age together,
but if we can't, let's promise now
to remember how we shone
when we were at our best,
when we were most ourselves.
Dear One by Mary Lambert
Where did you come from, bright star?
What heaven did you leap from, dear love?
How can I spell your name
Without the sound of Autumn
Underneath my tongue,
Without acknowledging the lovers who bent me in half
Bless them for bringing me to you
How can I say your name
Without also breathing the words
My god, I found you.
How can I ever speak again with this mouth
When it has found where it belongs
When you touch me, I am a bed of calla lilies
I will build a house and fill it with evergreens
I will paint sunsets on every wall
So you can only see beautiful things
How can I say love
Without wanting to fold myself into you
Like a thousand paper cranes?
Dear one,
I was halved the moment I was born
Either piece of me is inside of your mouth
And I was found whole the moment you spoke.
Wendy Cope - A VOW
I cannot promise never to be angry;
I cannot promise always to be kind.
You know what you are taking on, my darling –
It's only at the start that love is blind.
And yet I'm still the one you want to be with
And you're the one for me – of that I'm sure.
You are my closest friend, my favourite person,
The lover and the home I've waited for.
I cannot promise that I will deserve you
From this day on. I hope to pass that test.
I love you and I want to make you happy.
I promise I will do my very best.
Have You Got A Biro I Can Borrow? BY CLIVE JAMES
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
On the palm of my hand, on the walls of the hall
The roof of the house, right across the land
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll look to this side of the hard-bitten planet
Like a big yellow button with your name written on it
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write some lines
In praise of your knee, and the back of your neck
And the double-decker bus that brings you to me
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnet
And a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid
Oh give me a pen and some paper
Give me a chisel or a camera
A piano and a box of rubber bands
I need room for choreography
And a darkroom for photography
Tie the brush into my hands
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
From the belt of Orion to the share of the Plough
The snout of the Bear to the belly of the Lion
So when the sun goes down tomorrow
There’ll never be a minute
Not a moment of the night that hasn’t got you in it
To Love Is Not To Possess by James Kavanaugh
To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
I Belong In Your Arms by Deborah Brideau
Finally I have found a place
Into which I fit perfectly, safely and securely
With no doubts, no fears, no sadness, no tears.
This place is filled with happiness and laughter,
Yet it is spacious enough to allow me the freedom to move around, To live my life and be myself.
This wonderful place, which I never believed really existed,
I have found, finally,
Inside your arms, Inside your heart, Inside your love
UNION by Robert Fulghum
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 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.
Roll on the Wedding! - Catherine Smith
The band has been booked, the cake has been made,
the photographer’s chosen, all bills have been paid.
The guests are decided, the menu too;
Something borrowed? Check! Ditto old and blue.
The stationery’s been ordered, along with the flowers,
favours are done after fiddling for hours.
The stag do’s a blur, same goes for the hen –
won’t be drinking that much in one sitting again!
The dress has been picked, accessories bought;
there’s nothing to schedule, no more to sort.
After endless to-do lists for over a year,
it’s time to relax; the big day is here!
Sitting here with my girls as our hair gets done,
I can’t help feeling lucky to have found ‘the one’ –
Just think, by lunchtime I’ll be his new wife!
Roll on the wedding, and our new married life!
Love is . . . by Adrian Henri
Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands
Love is
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light
Love is
Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is
Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is
Love is you and love is me
Love is a prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you’re away from me
Love is…
Wedding Poem by Whitney Hanson Poetry
They say that sometimes
love starts with a spark.
And that might be true,
but if I were to wish you a love,
I wouldn't wish fire for you.
You see, fire is powerful.
It burns bright and then it's gone.
It's beautiful and warm,
but it doesn't last long.
So instead of wishing you a love that burns,
I wish you a love like a river twists and turns.
It changes and it flows,
It is powerful and free.
But it consistently finds its way back to the sea.
And so like the water,
I hope your love is ever growing, ever changing.
I hope your love is powerful and free,
And may you always find each other,
Like a river finds the sea.
First Meeting by ASJ Tessimond
When I first met you, I knew I had come at last home,
Home after wandering, home after long puzzled searching.
Home, after long being wind-borne, wave-tossed, night-caught'
Long being lost.
And being with you as normal and needful and natural
As sleeping or walking; and I was myself, who had never
Been wholly myself; I was walking and talking and laughing
Easily at last.;
And the air was softer and sounds were sharper
And colours were brighter and sky was higher
And length was not measured by milestones and time was not measured by clocks....
And this end was a beginning...
And these words are the beginning of my thanks.
John Agard - NUPTIALS
River, be their teacher,
that together they may turn
their future highs and lows
into one hopeful flow
Two opposite shores
feeding from a single source.
Mountain, be their milestone,
that hand in hand they rise above
familiarity's worn tracks
into horizons of their own
Two separate footpaths
dreaming of a common peak.
Birdsong, be their mantra,
that down the frail aisles of their days,
their twilight hearts twitter morning
and their dreams prove branch enough.
Roger McGough - VOW
I vow to honour the commitment made this day
Which, unlike the flowers and the cake,
Will not wither or decay. A promise, not to obey
But to respond joyfully, to forgive and to console,
For once incomplete, we now are whole.
I vow to bear in mind that if, at times
Things seem to go from bad to worse,
They also go from bad to better.
The lost purse is handed in, the letter
Contains wonderful news. Trains run on time,
Hurricanes run out of breath, floods subside,
And toast lands jam-side up.
And with this ring, my final vow:
To recall, whatever the future may bring,
The love I feel for you now.
In One Another’s Souls by Rumi
The moment I heard my first love story
I started looking for you,
not knowing how useless that was.
Lovers don’t meet somewhere along the way.
They’re in one another’s souls all along.
I Love You by Roy Croft
I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.
I love you for
the part of me that you bring out;
I love you for
putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
that you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful things
that no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
Imtiaz Dharker - I TAKE
I take
your body where love takes place
I take
your mouth where my life takes shape
I take
your breath which makes my space
I take
you as you are, for good
I take
you with open arms, to have
I take
you to have
and to hold but not to hold
too hard
I take
you for farther for closer
for sooner for later
till
till
death tries to get us
and we laugh and we stall
and we tell it to call us some other
fine day because we are busy today
taking our tea with buttered
hope and
I take
thee
I take
thee
Dust by Harry Baker
It’s not the flowers, it’s the weeding in the mud with you
It’s not the champagne it’s that cuppa in that favourite mug you use
It’s knowing anything I eat will include some for you
Because you’re not hungry but might just have a couple spoons
It’s not the dreaming, it’s the waking up with you,
I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you
We both agreed that even romantic baths need bubbles too,
But now I see maybe a snorkel was too much for you,
And yes, the submarine and rubber duck came out a touch too soon,
And yet the fundamental truth is:
I have fun with you.
It’s knowing if it came to it and I had option to
I would not change a single thing of what I’ve got with you
For us love isn’t in the air, that’s just where we found it
All this is built upon what we have done to ground it
It’s not the spark when we first met
It is the lifetime built around it
It’s by small amounts, that mounds amount to mountains
I need not justify or adjust or fear I’m judged by you
Such is the glorious consistency of loving you
My heart’s not skipped a beat
It just constantly thuds for you
Such is the everyday magnificence of loving you
It’s not something we fell into, so much as stumbled through
It’s the spectacular normality of loving you
It’s not the dreaming
It’s the waking up with you
I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you.
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
I know that love can be loud and jubilant…
It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting “YOU ARE AMAZING” over the band. It’s introducing them to your colleagues at a work event and basking in pride as they make people laugh and make you look lovable just by dint of being loved by them.
It’s laughing until you wheeze.
It’s waking up in a country neither of you have been in before.
It’s skinny-dipping at dawn. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.
It’s a big, beautiful, ebullient force of nature.
I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing.
It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting.
It’s hanging up their laundry when they leave the house having moronically forgotten to take it out of the washing machine.
It’s saying ‘You’re safer here than in a car’ as they hyperventilate on an EasyJet flight to Dublin.
It’s the texts: ‘Hope your day goes well’, ‘How did today go?’, ‘Thinking of you today’ and ‘Picked up loo roll’.
I know that love happens under the splendour of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport, or in a traffic jam.
Love is a quiet, reassuring, relaxing, pottering, pedantic, harmonious hum of a thing; something you can easily forget is there, even though its palms are outstretched beneath you in case you fall.
Clare Shaw - VOW
Say yes.
That word on your lips
is a kiss;
is a promise already made.
We made it.
Love did not turn from hurt
or hard work.
When lights failed, it did not switch off.
When love had no road,
we willingly built it.
We shouldered its stones
and its dirt. So thankfully
there are days like this when it's easy.
When we open our mouths
and the words flood in.
Put the word of your hand
in mine.
We have learnt to hold to each other
when nothing was given by right;
how love will insist
with its ache; with its first painful
tug on the guts;
its snake in the nest of the ribs;
the bomb in the chest;
in the Y of the thighs; the red, red
red sun of it, rising.
How love must, at all costs,
be answered. We have answered
and so have a million before us
and each of their names is a vow.
So now I can tell you, quite simply
you are the house I will live in:
there is no good reason
to move. Good earth,
you are home, stone, sun,
all my countries. Vital to me
as the light. You are it
and I am asking.
Say yes.
Love opens a door
then slams it. It does.
It loses its touch and its looks.
But love needs its fury.
We have fought
and when times make it necessary,
we will again. When night draws in,
we won't forget
how once the streets ran wet with light
and love. Like blood. They will again.
But for now,
we make our promises gently.
This extraordinary day we have made.
Listen –
the birds in their ordinary heaven.
Tonight the sky will blaze
with stars. Today, my love,
rooms bloom with flowers.
Say yes.
The sky is ours.
Alan Jenkins - THE SAILOR'S VOW
The life I spent so lavishly
Before we met
Seems one long night, in memory,
Of sea-fever and sea-fret –
Which led me here, to you, to this:
Our haven below decks.
You anchor me, I you, with a kiss
(Though the coast is strewn with wrecks).
Louis de Bernières - FROM CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the proclamation of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
Other links:
https://www.rockmywedding.co.uk/wedding-poems
https://www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-planning/ceremony-and-reception/wedding-poems/#Popular