Readings for your Ceremony

One way to add a personal touch to your ceremony is to ask a friend or family member to do a reading for you. If you are having a civil wedding, the readings cannot contain any religious content for legal reasons. Of course, there is nothing stopping you or your groom doing a reading either, but what ever you choose, the Register Office will usually ask to see what you have chosen in advance of your wedding day to make sure it is not inappropriate.

Taken from a Bride Buddy Wedding.

Eclection Photography

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 root was 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 promulgation of promises 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.

Reading from Captain Correli's Mandolin

Depending on the reading, the Registrars usually have a pretty good idea of the best places for them to go in the ceremony itself. This helps it to flow and have structure. If you were asking Bride Buddy to write a ceremony for you, we would of course talk to you about any readings you wanted included.

You are not usually limited to just one reading at a civil wedding. Some Register Offices will accommodate up to 3 readings on the day. Bear in mind, they should be appropriate, but that doesn't mean they cannot be fun too. You, or the person you have nominated, can write the reading themselves as well. Again, the Register Office will want to check it over first.

We are not going to provide you with pages and pages of readings here. There are plenty of really good websites for wedding readings, but we have included a couple of favourites, not least, the reading from the book and the film Captain Correli's Mandolin as it was read at our own Bride-Buddy Expert's wedding. The film is set on the island of Kefalonia, which is where she was proposed to, so you can see why this would be special.

Maybe there are readings that relate to special moments in your relationship together that you would like included on the day.

Taken from a Bride Buddy Wedding.

The Apache Wedding Reading Anon

Now you will feel no storms, 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 there is no loneliness, for each of you is companion to the other, You are two persons, but there is one life before you, and one home. Turn together to look at the road you traveled, to reach this---the hour of your happiness. It stretches behind you into the past. Look to the future that lies ahead. A long and winding, adventure-filled road, whose every turn means discovery, new hopes, new joys, new laughter, and a few shared tears. May happiness be your companion, May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead; And through all the years to come. Go this day to your dwelling place and enter into your days together. May your days be good and long upon the earth. Your adventure has just begun!

Needless to say, apart from Captain Correli, we couldn't resist sharing just a couple of other favourites with you........

I Wanna Be Yours John Cooper Clarke

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
Breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
Let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
For those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
When you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
Take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

Taken from a Bride Buddy Wedding.

Eclection Photography

I wanna be your electric meter

I will not run out

I wanna be the electric heater

You’ll get cold without

I wanna be your setting lotion

Hold your hair in deep devotion

Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean

That’s how deep is my devotion