Ceremony Readings?

This is my favorite so far but I don't think it's really from the Dalai Lama..more like"Life's Little Instruction Book":

From "Instructions For Life In The New Millennium" by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

And that a loving atmosphere in your home

is the foundation for your life.

Be gentle with the earth,

be gentle with one another.

When disagreements come

remember always to protect the spirit of your union.

When you realize you've made a mistake,

take immediate steps to correct it.

Remember that the best relationship is one

in which your love for each other

exceeds your need for each other.

So love yourselves, love one another,

love all that is your life together

and all else will follow.

If you go to my pinterst reading page, you'll find things from a number of different officiants; funny, cool, non religious.

http://pinterest.com/celiamilton

We just incorporated a couple good ones into what the Pastors read. Like the one about "look at each other's hands, etc". We didn't have anyone else come up to read.

We are having three: these hands, an excerpt from Nicholas Sparks and a reading right before we kiss. My have is the one right before our kiss

Before I pronounce you husband and wife, I have just one more thing I want you to do. Your wedding day is one that seems to fly. It’s a day filled with emotion, family, friends and dances. Many people remember their wedding day as a blur. So I want you to take a few seconds to look into each others’ eyes. Think about the happiness that you’re feeling in this place, in this moment. Really let that feeling register into your heart and your mind. Now, I want you to think about your life together in twenty years. Where are you? What are you doing? We all know that your visions of the future are not identical but always complimentary. Someone once said “a dream you dream alone is only a dream, a dream you dream together, THAT is reality.” That new reality starts now.

That "someone" is John Lennon, but where is that reading from? Me?

We're not doing readings, but our officiant put in a hand ceremony. I didn't know what it was, so I looked it up (I had asked him for info for our programs), and it's beautiful!!!! It made me cry.

@Future Mrs. Coombs: Love it! I saw that one on Celia's beautiful pinterest page. And Celia, I think my favorite was " I promise to eat a sandwich before I yell at you." HB, I am looking up hand ceremony right now

Okay if I do that hand ceremony, I am going to lose it. Full waterworks. And I cry like once every two years, so it could go on for a while.

I thought it sounded familiar, lol!

Celia, you know you are successful when you are being quoted to yourself, ha!

HALEY: “What is REAL?” asked the velveteen Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side in the nursery. “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 someone 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 your 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. Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

Cont..Had to share that quote. It is from The Velveteen Rabbit and I always wanted it read at my wedding. We're also doing an Apache blessing and a poem called "The Invitation" That I loved.

@ Kim: That is so precious and touching. Could you share where I could find "The Invitation"?

It's by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I don't have the link right now to post but you can google that and it will come up with no problem

My FMIL is reading In Marriage and my son will read the excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit.

I don't remember where I got it from. One day I searched ceremomy readings & came across that and loved it!

We're having “Union” by Robert Fulghum and and excerpt from Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The first is a little long, but here's the second:

"Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like a volcano 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 promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any food can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love is 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."

My fiancé's cousin is writing the readings are ceremony which I think is really sweet because we wanted very personal touches our wedding

Hi! What Nicholas Sparks quote did you do?