A good friend asked me to be an attendant at her wedding. She’s a very untraditional free-spirit who probably should have grown up in the 60s. Her wedding is also very untraditional - no pastel-colored hideously unattatractive bridesmaid dresses required; she wrote on the invitiation “You better wear your leather skirt and show some cleavage.”
I’m going to tell the story about how I am indirectly responsible for the bride and groom meeting, but I have no idea how to go about finding something lovey-dovey to read. He’p me! Somebody please he’p me!
When I had to do the same, I went to the Oxford book of quotations and looked under “love”. The couple I was writing for was very different that your friend, but get a cool quote, then:
Write one or two sentences to intro the quote “I was thinking about what to say, and realized that what has impressed me most about x and y is…”
State the quote
Explain why it applies, using examples of how you know the bride and/or groom, how they interact with each other, etc…
Close with sincere wishes of love and health
Get out fast!!
Remember, it’s all about coming across naturally and like you mean what you say sincerely. Don’t get all Shakespeare in what you write (if you quote Shakespeare, fine, but that’s the quote), and make sure you REHEARSE - in front of friends and a mirror. And when in doubt, speak more slowly than you would normally - what comes across as natural when giving a speech is not simply speaking conversationally.
Check Bartleby online, or do a Google search on Quotes and I am sure you will get the material you need.
My post got eaten- ggrrrrrrr… ::mutters under breath:::
So anyway, how about something from Sappho?
To Atthis
Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly
and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.
Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all
stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields
lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.
Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart
for us to come.
–Translated by Willis Barnstone
Hmm, or maybe you could just take the middle part of it and adapt it for your reading- “Now you shine among us like/ the rose-fingered moon/ rising after sundown/erasing all stars around you,” etc. and you could tell them it’s from an ancient poem.
Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
Though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near togetherness:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
I had our (mail order) “priest” readthis Tennyson poem (ignore the music bit) at my unconventional wedding as my sisters and I filed up to the landing area of the pond beside which we were married. It’s a bit “cutesy” but pretty. That marriage ended in divorce, but you don’t have to tell.
Ambrose Bierce - from The Devil’s Dictionary MARRIAGE, n.
The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Or Ogden Nash - A Word to Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Or something a little longer from Nash - What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner or Later
Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting up with.
And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the discipline of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss
They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss,
And when you tell them about something awful they have done they just look unbearably patient and smile a superior smile,
And think,
Oh she’ll get over it after a while.
And they always drink cocktails faster than they can assimilate them,
And if you look in their direction they act as if they were martyrs and you were trying to sacrifice, or immolate them,
And when it’s a question of walking five miles to play golf they are very energetic but if it’s doing anything useful around the house they are very lethargic,
And then they tell you that women are unreasonable and don’t know anything about logic,
And they never want to get up or go to bed at the same time as you do,
And when you perform some simple common or garden rite like putting cold cream on your face or applying a touch of lipstick they seem to think that you are up to some kind of black magic like a priestess of Voodoo.
And they are brave and calm and cool and collected about the ailments of the person they have promised to honor and cherish,
But the minute they get a sniffle or a stomachache of their own, why you’d think they were about to perish,
And when you are alone with them they ignore all the minor courtesies and as for airs and graces, they uttlerly lack them,
But when there are a lot of people around they hand you so many chairs and ashtrays and sandwiches and butter you with such bowings and scrapings that you want to smack them.
Husbands are indeed an irritating form of life,
And yet through some quirk of Providence most of them are really very deeply ensconced in the affection of their wife
I may steal that Dr. Suess idea for our wedding, or maybe we’ll use our monstrously large copy of Guess How Much I Love You–“I love you to the moon…and back!”
This was in the folder our priest gave us:
American Indian Wedding Prayer
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no more loneliness.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life together.
And may your days be good, and long upon the earth.
I got the impression you didn’t want “Godsy” stuff, but there is some great love stuff there too, like in Song of Songs.
Should I get married? Should I be Good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?
Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky–
There are entire books devoted to just this thing. I used a book of wedding readings to choose something from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, like beagledave suggested. I had a friend read a passage about marriage being like a dance, where sometimes the couple is together, sometimes apart, but always moving together, aware of each other. I loved it.
Check your library or bookstore. The wedding books are usually stuck in with etiquette books.
Thanks for all the useful (and not-so-useful ;)) ideas. I actually found a couple of possibilities at a web-site of famous quotations. I thought for a minute I might be able to find something in a book I have here at home, but the only books of quotations I have are “The Portable Curmudgeon” and “The Curmudgeon’s Garden of Love,” neither of which seem quite appropriate.
