Anonymous wrote:Ruth 1:16-17

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

But if anyone knows the bible they will know the context from which this is taken is wrong for the situation. This is Ruth talking to another woman, her mother-in-law, Naomi.

Anonymous wrote:i carry your heart with me
by E.E. Cummings
from Complete Poems 1904-62

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 are 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 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)

I read this for a friend at her wedding. I'm usually cool as a cucumber but my voice cracked toward the end because in the setting it really was beautiful!

I went to a wedding where they read an excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit. Sorry, I don't remember the exact passage.

I also went to a wedding where they read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 that The Byrds turned into a song (Turn, Turn, Turn . . . To every thing there is a season . . . ).

Song of Solomon 3 - The Bride's Dream

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, And I said, 'Have you seen him whom my soul loves?
Scarcely had I left them When I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would not let him go Until I had brought him to my mother's house, And into the room of her who conceived me.
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

i carry your heart with me
by E.E. Cummings
from Complete Poems 1904-62

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 are 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 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)

OP here. Thank you for the many excellent suggestions. I really appreciate your help.

As for the observation that my sister is allowing herself to be a doormat, I have to agree. To give you an idea, they've been dating since college and they're now early thirties. For a year they lived 200 miles apart. It was a long distance relationship - for her. She was the one who traveled to see him every weekend. At one time I gave her a copy of Greg Behrendt's, "He's Just Not That Into You". She read it cover to cover and still wasn't willing to make the association that it might be her. I'm still waiting for Greg Behrendt to write the sequel, "Wake Up Girlfriend, I'm Talking To You - He's Not That Into You". And it's not just me that's tried to raise this with my sisiter. I'm in line behind her father, mother, a grandmother and two other sisters. I will stay she's very stubborn. Hopefully it will all work out for them.

Anonymous wrote:I love the Apache blessing above.

I am concerned that your sister is allowing herself to be a doormat.

It does sound a bit like that at a glance.

Here is a list of both religious and secular readings for a wedding:

http://www.todays-weddings.com/planning/readings.html

Ruth 1:16-17

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII
BY PABLO NERUDA
TRANSLATED BY MARK EISNER

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Shakespeare's sonnet #116

I love the Apache blessing above.

I am concerned that your sister is allowing herself to be a doormat.

1 Corinthians 13 ("love is patient; love is kind") is read at a lot of weddings. For a high Episcopal wedding, there were only four acceptable scriptures listed in the Book of Common Prayer, which is why you hear it a lot. Here's my favorite and areligious and p.c. to boot:

Apache Blessing

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth for the other.
Now there is no loneliness for you, now you are two persons but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your togetherness, and may your days be good and long together.

It was sent to us in script 24 years ago as a wedding gift and still hangs in our kitchen.

Google Ecclesiastics wedding readings.

Ecclesiastics 4: 9-12 is very nice.

Also check out Songs of Solomon.

My sister is getting married in late August. She has e-mailed me with the request I say a few words during the wedding ceremony. I was told I had “complete freedom to choose whatever I want – a short reading, a lovely saying, a poem, a song etc”. My sister is more religious than her fiancé and would I suspect have wanted a church wedding (which she isn’t getting). With that in mind DW and I spent time reviewing readings before selecting the popular passage from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Resounding gong/clashing cymbal). The feedback from my sister is that while she “really loves this reading” her fiancé is “not a fan” because the passage is read at too many weddings. The long story short is that I didn’t in fact have complete freedom to choose and I now need to come up with another reading. It’s an unequal relationship in that the fiancé always gets his way. At this point I’m resolved to go along to get along, and need reading suggestions, both serious (and otherwise). Thank you for your help.