Having been to a wedding or two in my time (ahem, 500+) I have had the pleasure of listening to a lot of wedding readings. There are some classics; bangers like How Falling in Love is like Owning a Dog, The Lovely Love Story and excerpts from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin…. and they have rightly earned their place at a wedding, but that’s not what this post is about; this post is about unusual wedding readings; readings I’ve only heard once, or have stumbled across by chance that deserve more air time.

Readings are a lovely way of personalising your ceremony, and a way of including important people in your day. They can be an ice breaker in a ceremony making people chuckle, or something more thought provoking. Wedding planning pro tip: Church ceremonies usually require you to have at least one religious reading, while civil ceremonies don’t allow you have anything religious, so it’s worth chatting to your celebrant before printing anything in an order of service or nominating your chosen readers.

I hope you enjoy my favourite unusual wedding readings. If you’re planning a lovely unique ceremony for your wedding but you’ve forgotten about booking your photographer, I’d love to chat some more.

Alternative & Unusual wedding readings for couples who dance to a different beat

My Undeniable Miracle by John Mark Green

I don’t know why things happen the way they do—why so much of our lives have been spent in heartache and disappointment. Wrong timing. The wrong people. Unhappy situations. Not being our best and truest selves.

What I do know is that in you, I have finally found all I never dared dream I could deserve or have—the kind of love that is rare. Being known in a way that touches the deepest parts of me. Accepted in a way that blows my mind.

In you, the love I have always desired to give now has a place to call home. I have been a skeptic, but you are my undeniable miracle.

The questions don’t matter anymore.

We have finally found each other, and that is enough.

Love Like a River By Whitney Hanson

They say that sometimes love starts with a spark.

And that might be true, but if I were to wish you a love

I wouldn’t wish fire for you.

 You see fire is powerful, it burns bright and it’s gone.

It’s beautiful and warm but it doesn’t last long.

So instead of wishing you a love that burns

I wish you love like a river that twists and turns,

it changes and flows, it is powerful and free.

But it consistently find its way back to the sea.

And so like the water I hope your love is ever growing ever changing.

I hope your love is powerful and free.

And may you always find each other…

like the river finds the sea

Whitney Hanson on Instagram

Dust by Harry Baker

It’s not the flowers, it’s the weeding in the mud with you.

It’s not the champagne, it’s the cuppa in the favourite mug you use.

It’s not the chocolate,  ok yes it is but not one or two

It is becoming Bruce Bogtrotter or Augustus Gloop.

It’s voting frozen pizza over fancy grub with you

because some nights nothing can beat a slice of comfort food.

It’s knowing anything I eat will include some for you

because you’re not hungry but you might just have a couple of spoons.

It’s not the dreaming, it’s the waking up with you;

I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you.

Hear the rest on Harry Baker’s Instagram

Dance to to the End of Love by Leonard Cohen 

From “The Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, mot in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; or never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t
Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t
Maybe you’ll divorce at 40
Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary
Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old – and when you do, you’ll fantasise that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders

Don’t expect anyone else to support you.

Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.