Ceremonies by Nikki Kulin, Costa Celebrant - Wedding readings
The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pulman
I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till i find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… we’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… and when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…
The Art of Marriage – Wilferd Arlan Peterson
A good marriage must be created. In the marriage, the little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once each day, It is never going to sleep angry. It is having a mutual sense of values and objectives. It is standing together and facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family. It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each person can grow. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is not only marrying the right person It is being the right partner.
To Love is Not to Possess – James Kavanagh
To love is not to possess, To own or imprison, Nor to lose one’s self in another. Love is to join and separate, To walk alone and together, To find a laughing freedom That lonely isolation does not permit. It is finally to be able To be who we really are No longer clinging in childish dependency Nor docilely living separate lives in silence, It is to be perfectly one’s self And perfectly joined in permanent commitment To another–and to one’s inner self. Love only endures when it moves like waves, Receding and returning gently or passionately, Or moving lovingly like the tide In the moon’s own predictable harmony, Because finally, despite a child’s scars Or an adult’s deepest wounds, They are openly free to be Who they really are–and always secretly were, In the very core of their being Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
The Velveteen Rabbit – Margery Williams
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Why Marriage? by Mari Nichols-Haining
“Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person, With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body…
Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me, Who won’t hold them against me, Who loves me when I’m unlikable, Who sees the small child in me, and Who looks for the divine potential of me…
Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night, With someone I feel blessed to hold…
Because marriage means opportunity, To grow in love in friendship…
Because marriage is a discipline, To be added to a list of achievements…
Because marriages do not fail, people fail, When they enter into marriage, Expecting another to make them whole…
Because, knowing this, I promise myself to take full responsibility, For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness, I create me, I take half of the responsibility for my marriage, Together we create our marriage…
Because with this understanding, The possibilities are limitless.”
From Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have become 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 of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
Union by Robert Fulghum
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 symbolic 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.
I will be here by Steven Curtis Chapman
Tomorrow morning if you wake up And the sun does not appear I will be here If in the dark we lose sight of love Hold my hand and have no fear ‘Cause I will be here
I will be here When you feel like being quiet When you need to speak your mind I will listen And I will be here When the laughter turns to crying Through the winning, losing and trying We’ll be together ‘Cause I will be here
Tomorrow morning if you wake up And the future is unclear I will be here As sure as seasons are made for change Our lifetimes are made for years So I will be here
I will be here And you can cry on my shoulder When the mirror tells us we’re older I will hold you And I will be here To watch you grow in beauty And tell you all the things you are to me I will be here
I will be true to the promise I have made To you and to the One who gave you to me
And just as sure as seasons are made for change Our lifetimes are made for years So I will be here
From Les Miserables
The future belongs far more to the heart than to the mind. Love is the one thing that can fill and fulfill eternity. The infinite calls for the inexhaustible.
Love partakes of the soul, being of the same nature. Like the soul, it is the divine spark, incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is the fiery particle that dwells in us, immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine and nothing extinguish. We feel its glow in the marrow of our bones and see its brightness reaching to the depths of heaven.
Oh, love, adoration, the rapture of two spirits which know each other, two hearts which are exchanged, two looks which interpenetrate! You will come to me, will you not, this happiness! To walk together in solitude! Blessed and radiant days! I have sometimes thought that now and then moments my be detached from the lives of angels to enrich the lives of men.
God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love except to make it unending. After a lifetime of love an eternity of love is indeed an increase.
Nikki is a professional Wedding and Funeral Celebrant based between Sussex and Malaga in Spain.
She specialises in handwritten, bespoke wedding ceremonies conducted in her couples chosen location and has built a 5 star reputation on going the extra mile. Using the mantra that ‘there are no rules with a celebrant-led wedding’, she works closely with couples to create ceremonies which celebrate their love story – traditional or not, religious or not, spiritual or not, starting every ceremony as a blank page and creating something truly unique and using her skills as a writer and creative.
