Monday 16th April: Readings for the not so traditonal wedding…

Written by Bespoke Bride, Posted in Advice & Planning

Happy Monday everyone! Over the last few weeks, both my beau and I have been trying to find something we would like to have read at our wedding. It’s been quite a difficult task as we have specific things that we want or don’t want it to say. For example it can’t be too traditional as we are planning a humanist ceremony, but it’s important to us that the reading reflects our feelings for each other, however it can’t be too soppy because that just isn’t who we are? So to start the week off we thought we would share a shortlist with you of a few of our favourites, in the hope someone would find it useful if they are struggling to find the right words.

: Image courtesy of Pinterest

To Love is Not to Possess – 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

♥ ♥ ♥

Love 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 belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple.

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

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.

You have done it

By being yourself.

♥ ♥ ♥

Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton

I like you a lot.

You’re funny and kind.

So let me explain

What I have in mind.

I want to be your personal penguin.

I want to walk right by your side.

I want to be your personal penguin.

I want to travel with you far and wide.

♥ ♥ ♥

From The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams)

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

♥ ♥ ♥

Adam Sandler’s “I Wanna Grow Old With You”

I wanna make you smile,

Whenever you’re sad.

Carry you around when your arthritis is bad.

All I wanna do,

Is grow old with you.

I’ll get you medicine,

when your tummy aches.

Build you a fire if the furnace breaks.

Oh it could be so nice,

Growin’ old with you.