What to read at a wedding?

I’m often asked by people who’ve been asked to read at wedding services if I can recommend a poem or recitation that isn’t uber-sweet and syrupy or hackneyed.

The wonderful, vivacious Lady Val Corbett, Director of the brilliant  ‘Hoxton Apprentice‘ social enterprise, and networker extraordinaire, sent me this reading which was part of the service at  her daughter’s recent wedding…such beautiful words, truly moving and apposite.

I have been a long time fan of Robert Fulghum’s  “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” which I regularly display on the wall in my seminars and workshops, and had not realised his writing is so powerful, lyrical and wide ranging. There’s a link to his site in his name below, check out the delicious ‘Winter Count’.

Union

‘You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of “yes”, to this moment of “yes”, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way.

All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those

late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.

All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed? Well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time.

Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.

For after today you shall say to the world –

“This is my husband.”

“This is my wife.”‘

by Robert Fulghum