Wedding reading--help!

[stout]

My sister is getting married next week. Non-religious, casual wedding, but she would like me to do a reading. I have now been tasked with selecting the reading too...she wants a surprise.
I was thinking about a kids' book or movie reading, but when I search the Internet, I find the same dozen over and over again. It needs to be unique. I would love Dr. Seuss or Charlie Brown or something of that nature, but don't like the couple suggestions on the Internet thus far. Any ideas are appreciated!!!

 

[VandVsmama]

Dr Seuss - Oh The Places You'll Go!

 

[kimblebee]

I carry your heart with me- e.e. Cummings

 

[disykat]

Another children's book idea. The passage in "The Velveteen Rabbit" where there horse answers the question about "what is real." It talks about how being loved makes you real.

I have to add, that I thought the Velveteen rabbit made me emotional, I just read the ee cumings poem. Wow!

 

[cabanafrau]

A friend had a great reading at her wedding from a book by Lisa Kleypas called Blue Eyed Devil. It was really beautiful and fitting for them because of the path they took to finding each other -- it talked about how people wind up fitting together perfectly partially because of their flaws, both matching each other perfectly because our own jagged edges somehow perfectly enmesh with each other.

 

[2disneywego]

Is it possible to tell us a little more about their respective personalities? Some people love it, and others may not enjoy a children's book.
I was not a bridezilla, 13 people in my living room. My late DH had great attachments to the books mentioned above. We had no readings at our service, other than will you take this man, but neither of us would have wanted a children's book.
It's all about them, what they would "get", not what I would like.
Good luck and all my best to the happy couple.

 

[Kaytie]

https://www.thespruce.com/unique-wedding-readings-3490174

Or Us Two by A.A. Milne

Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
“What would I do?” I said to Pooh,
“If it wasn’t for,” and Poorh said: “True,
It isn’t much fon for One, but Two
Can stick together, says Pooh, says he.
“That’s how it is,” says Pooh, says he.
“That’s how it is,” says Pooh.

 

[Amapola_too]

If you decide not to go with a children's book, On Marriage by Kahlil Gibran is beautiful. Even though it mentions G-d, I don't think it's particularly religious.

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 G-d.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
(there are 2 more stanzas)

 

[luv2sewtjr]

If they like dogs, this reading is great. My brother and wife did it at theirs.

http://www.day2wed.com/images/Falling_in_Love_is_Like_Owning_a_Dog.pdf

 

[kimblebee]

Another children's book idea. The passage in "The Velveteen Rabbit" where there horse answers the question about "what is real." It talks about how being loved makes you real.

I have to add, that I thought the Velveteen rabbit made me emotional, I just read the ee cumings poem. Wow!

I've loved the poem since I heard it in a movie. When I got married, I had my daughter read the poem. It was a small wedding, only family, and there were a few tears shed.

 

[lovesmurfs]

On Marriage - Kahlil Gibran

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 together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Or how about the Princess Bride? by William Goldman

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches… I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I…

I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said, ‘Farm Boy, do this’, you thought I was answering, ‘As you wish’, but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”

 

[lovesmurfs]

The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
by Neil Gaiman

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life … You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. ”

 

[lovesmurfs]

From the Comic Strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Calvin: What's it like to fall in love?
Hobbes: Well... say the object of your affection walks by...
Calvin: Yeah?
Hobbes: First, your heart falls into your stomach and splashes your innards. All the moisture makes you sweat profusely. This condensation shorts the circuits to your brain and you get all woozy. When your brain burns out altogether, your mouth disengages and you babble like a cretin until she leaves.
Calvin: THAT'S LOVE?!?
Hobbes: Medically speaking.
Calvin: Heck, that happened to me once, but I figured it was cooties!

 

[2disneywego]

If you decide not to go with a children's book, On Marriage by Kahlil Gibran is beautiful. Even though it mentions G-d, I don't think it's particularly religious.

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 G-d.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
(there are 2 more stanzas)

That is so beautiful. I love it.

 

[KBoopaloo]

From Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like
volcanoes 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 promises of eternal passion.
That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what
is left over when being in love has 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.