Awesome wedding readings for bad-ass couples

Can I add one that we're using? Feel free to take it off the comments if this is the wrong place to post, but we found it hard to find a lovely reading that relates to offbeat mountain bikers!

Feel free to use: A Marriage Made for Two

A successful marriage can learn a lot from bicycle riding.

You should promise each other that you will not be fair weather riders, but venture out together in the wind and the rain. Only by braving the storms as a team will you reap the rewards when the sunshine arrives.

Look after each other. A well oiled bike will run smoothly and change gear easily.

Marriage is like a tandem…keep pedalling or the one at the front shouts at you!

You should promise each other to not only enjoy new adventures and explorations, but appreciate the same old routes you know and love.

Marriage is a promise to each other to endure the climbs so that you may chase the swoops and swerves of perfect singletrack.

The journey may be long and may have hills ahead, but if you climb together with love and passion, you will be able to achieve everything you both desire!

Wishing you all the best from the start line of the greatest endurance event of your lives. Good luck and may each lap be a great adventure.

**

Our friend is reading this for us. We actually wrote it ourselves, using some of the lovely comments guests had written with their RSVP's.

Hey, look at me there in the blue tie getting married! Our reading was from "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" & was the "Green Ribbon."

When we started looking for wedding readings I especially had a very hard time – I'd start going through the Neruda and Rilke poems and, though they were often lovely, my eyes just glazed over and I couldn't foster any personal connection with any of them. But we finally found some GREAT things – here's what we read when we got married a few weeks ago!

READING ONE:

From Colin's grandmother, a Miss Manners lover, the following excerpt.

"While exclusionary interest in one other human being, which is what we call courtship, is all very exciting in the stages of discovery, there is not enough substance in it for a lifetime, no matter how fascinating the people or passionate the romance.
The world, on the other hand, is chock full of interesting and curious things. The point of the courtship — marriage — is to secure someone with whom you wish to go hand in hand through this source of entertainment, each making discoveries, and then sharing some and merely reporting others. Anyone who tries to compete with the entire world, demanding to be someone's sole source of interest and attention, is asking to be classified as a bore. "Why don't you ever want to talk to me?" will probably never start a satisfactory marital conversation. "Guess what?" will probably never fail."

READING TWO:

My Dad – the only one who actually chose his own reading – read from Da Vinci's notebooks some Notes on the Construction of Arches, interspersed with his own commentary on how this actually is all about marriage. (I don't yet have a transcript of his words, alas, which were really the best part.)

"WHAT IS AN ARCH?

The arch is nothing else than a force originated by two weaknesses,
for the arch in buildings is composed of two segments of a circle, each of which being very weak in itself tends to fall; but as each opposes this tendency in the other, the two weaknesses combine to form one strength.

OF THE KIND OF PRESSURE IN ARCHES.

As the arch is a composite force it remains in equilibrium because
the thrust is equal from both sides; and if one of the segments
weighs more than the other the stability is lost, because the
greater pressure will outweigh the lesser.

ON THE STRENGTH OF THE ARCH.

The way to give stability to the arch is to fill the spandrils with
good masonry up to the level of its summit."

READING THREE:

My dear friend Katie read a selection from the Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruling on Gay Marriage, and we briefly mentioned how awe-inspiring it was that in our very city, in only two days, EVERYONE was about to get the right to marry. The cheer our guests let up was a joy to hear.

"Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.

Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition. Tangible as well as intangible benefits flow from marriage. The benefits accessible only by way of a marriage license are enormous, touching nearly every aspect of life and death.

It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a civil right."

READING FOUR:

Colin's sister read an excerpt from "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," included partially because the HHGttG being a crucially formative book for me when I was a child, and partially because it is awesome:

"They looked at each other for a moment.

The moment became a longer moment, and suddenly it was a very long moment, so long one could hardly tell where all the time was coming from.

For Arthur, who could usually contrive to feel self-conscious if left alone for long enough with a Swiss Cheese plant, the moment was one of sustained revelation. He felt on the sudden like a cramped and zoo-born animal who awakes one morning to find the door to his cage hanging quietly open and the savannah stretching grey and pink to the distant rising sun, while all around new sounds are waking.

He wondered what the new sounds were as he gazed at her openly wondering face and her eyes that smiled with a shared surprise.

He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers to the questions you continually ask of it, had never consciously detected it or recognized its tones till it now said something it had never said to him before, which was "Yes"."

And those were our readings. =)

Thanks, Ariel!

This is just what I needed. When I started looking for an offbeat-but-meaningful reading for our ceremony, I went to wikiquote and looked up "marriage." Almost every one of the results were NEGATIVE! How frustrating.

Ok, I'm off to present the Madeleine L'Engal passage to dear fiance!

I love that first one, I am going to have to hide it away for our rehearsal dinner.

We used:

Reading # 1: Wedding Ritual (adapted from StarTrek: Celebrations by Maureen McTigue)

With fire and steel did the gods forge the man’s heart. So fiercely did it beat, so loud was the sound, that the gods cried out: “On this day we have brought forth the strongest heart in all the heavens. None can stand before it without trembling at its strength.” But then the man’s heart weakened, its steady rhythm faltered, and the gods said: “Why do you weaken so? We have made you the strongest in all of creation.” And the heart said…"I…am alone." And the gods knew that they had erred. So they went back to their forge and brought forth another heart. But the second heart beat stronger than the first, and the first was jealous of its power. Fortunately, the second heart was tempered by wisdom.

"If we join together, no forces can stop us." And when the two hearts began to beat together, they filled the heavens with a ferocious sound–and to this very day, no one can oppose the beating of these two hearts.

Reading #2: "A Picnic on the Earth" by Shuntaro Tanikawa

Let’s jump rope here, you and I. Right here!
Let’s have lunch here, you and I.
Here I will love you.
Your eyes will reflect the blue of the sky
And your back will be dyed the color of mugwort.
Let’s learn, you and I, the names of the constellations.
Here let us dream of things distant.
Here let’s gather shellfish.
Let’s pick a little starfish
From the sea of the dawning sky.
At breakfast let’s throw it back
And let the night recede.
Here I’ll go on saying “I’m home!”
While you keep saying, “Welcome back!”
I’ll come back here again and again.
Here let’s drink hot tea.
Let’s sit here, you and I, and be caressed for a while
By the cool breeze.

I just got married on June 21 and these are the two readings we used. Though I LOVE all the ones you posted.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~

It's not as much about love, but in a second marriage, it was very appropriate!

Other one was:
Crusoe by George Bilgere
When you’ve been away from it long enough
You begin to forget the country
Of couples, with all its customs
And mysterious ways. Those two
Over there, for instance: late thirties,
Attractive and well-dressed, reading
At the table, drinking some complicated
Coffee drink. They haven’t spoken
Or even looked at each other in thirty minutes
But the big toe of her right foot, naked
In its sandal, sometimes grazes
The naked ankle bone of his left foot,
The faintest signal, a line thrown
Between two vessels as they cruise
Through this hour, this vacation, this life,
Through the thick novels they’re reading,
Her toe saying to his ankle,
Here’s to the whole improbable story
Of our meeting, of our life together
And the oceanic richness
Of our mingled narrative
With its complex past, with its hurts
And secret jokes, its dark closets
And delightful sexual quirks,
Its occasional doldrums, its vast
Future we have already peopled
With children. How safe we are
Compared to that man sitting across the room,
Marooned with his drink
And yellow notebook, trying to write
A way off his little island.

Whee!
Our first dance was 'Book of Love' by the Magnetic Fields!

We didn't have this as a reading–I actually incorporated it into my vows–but it would make a REALLY nice reading. From the book "I like you" by Sandol Stoddard:

I like you
And I know why
I like you because
You are a good person
To like
I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it's special
And you remember it
A long long time
You say
Remember when you told me
Something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
You think it's important too
When I say something funny
You laugh
I think I'm funny and
You think I'm funny too
I like you because
You know where I'm ticklish
And you don't tickle me there
except
Just a little tiny bit
sometimes
But if you do then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That's why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me
till I met you
I like you because
You know when it's time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Oops too late
It's quarter post silly
We fool around the same way all the time
Sometimes we don't say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus
Hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning
You pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag
Then you are getting to jump
That's because
You really like me
You really like me
Don't you
And I really like you back
And you like me back
And I like you back
And that's the way we keep on going
Every day
If you go away
then I go away too
Or if I stay home
You send me a postcard
You don't just say
Well see you around
Some time
Bye
I like you a lot
because of that
If I go away
I send you a postcard too
And I like you because
If we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
then you are the one that is yelling for me
Hey where are you
Here I am
And I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don't always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can't stand the others being so googly and gaggly
every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It's awful when the other person isn't

They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about
punch them in the nose
I like you because if I think I am going to
throw up then you are really sorry
You don't just pretend you are busy looking at
the birdies and all that
You say maybe it was something you ate
You say same thing happened to me one time
And the same thing did

If you find two four-leaf clovers
You give me one
If I find four
I give you two
If we only find three
We keep on looking
Sometimes we have good luck
And sometimes we don't
If I break my arm and
If you bread your arm too
Then it is fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine
You tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too
I like you because
I don't know why but
Everything that happens
Is nicer with you
I can't remember when I didn't like you
It must have been lonesome then
I like you because because
I forget why I like you
But I do
So many reasons
On the Fourth of July I like you because
It's the Fourth of July
On the Fifth of July
I like you too
If you and I had some drums
And some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some
Flags and some fire-engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?
Even if it was the
nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That's how it would happen every time
I don't know why

I guess I don't know why I like you really
Why do I like you
I guess I just like you
I guess I just like you
Because I like you

[sorry that was hella long]