Ceremony Readings

We will be meeting with our minister this week.  Groomsman MW was Mr. ST's college roommate.  MW's mom will be performing our ceremony. 

That leaves me in charge of finding some readings for the ceremony.  Groomzilla originally made a request that the ceremony be short so I can't pick anything tooooo long. 

It's also traditional in his family to read the "gong" passage from the bible.  His godmother and godfather will be reading that together.  There is this funny thing about being nervous to read during the ceremony that has made everyone say the word GONG funny and then giggle. 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
   Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
   Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
   And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It is a beautiful passage.  I've read it in weddings before too and have loved it every time.

For the other reading or readings (I want two more, he only wants one- Ggrrrr Groomzilla!!!) I've been researching some readings from literature.  I can't help but want some aspect of my love of literature and books to be a part of the ceremony. 

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

I Love You 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 ignoring the possibilities of the fool in me

And for laying firm hold of the possibilities for good.

Why do I love you?

I love you for closing your eyes to the discords

And for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.

I love you because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life,

Not a tavern but a temple;

And out of the words of my every day

Not a reproach but a song.

I love you because you have done more than any creed to make me happy.

You have done it without a word, without a touch, without a sign.

You have done it just by being yourself.

After all, perhaps that is what love means.

i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it

(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me

is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world (for beautiful, you are my world, my true)

and it’s you whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

And of course, my personal FAVORITE:

Sonnet No. 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove;

Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, Although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But it bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

But I think I may have to translate it for most people, especially Groomzilla. I would love to use it as part of my vows, but he would have no idea what I was telling him. lol.

What did you pick for your ceremony?  Did you choose any nontraditional pieces?  Please share them!!