Wedding Blog
I’m a words girl. These words are some of my favorites.
When I talk about “my people”, this is the context I’m referring to. I can’t think of a more concise description of what marriage is.
Ruth 1:16 -
Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you, For where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. And where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord do with me and more if anything but death parts you from me.
This is my definition of intimacy:
George Eliot -
Oh, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
And this one? This one is the goal, the reminder that you are to be each other’s shelter and support:
Apache Wedding Prayer
Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is 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 upon the earth.
I haven’t yet gotten deep into research for our ceremony, but I have no doubt that these words will end up in it… because I think of them often in our lives. What are your favorite words?
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My absolute favorite words are Robert Fulghum’s poem, Union. I stumbled upon it while doing ceremony research and it describes us to a T.
Those words ROCK. Seriously I love them. We’re writing our own ceremony so I’m on the look out for any and all things written! 
Thanks for sharing .
Those are some wonderful and powerful words. Thanks for sharing! I’ve been looking for some good readings for our ceremony.
ogden nash:
Geniuses of countless nations
Have told their love for generations
Till all their memorable phrases
Are common as goldenrod or daisies.
Their girls have glimmered like the moon,
Or shimmered like a summer moon,
Stood like a lily, fled like a fawn,
Now the sunset, now the dawn,
Here the princess in the tower
There the sweet forbidden flower.
Darling, when I look at you
Every aged phrase is new,
And there are moments when it seems
I’ve married one of Shakespeare’s dreams.
we used this as a reading in our ceremony.
love your words. they are amazing and moving.
I love it! My parents used the Apache prayer in their ceremony
Great words. We are writing our ceremony and I am always looking for literary inspiration!
Love the George Eliot quote! Thanks for sharing! I’m always on the hunt for new favs. We already finished writing our ceremony and vows, and included the poem Falling in Love is Like Owning and a Dog. Everything else about our ceremony is pretty deep and sentimental so we wanted something a little more lighthearted to add to it!
I used Ruth 1:16 for a reading by DH’s godfather. It was beautiful.
I’ve always loved this poem by Yeats:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I love this, from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
This will for sure be in our vows.
And I love this, too, from the same:
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Ditto to Miss Meatball - Those. Are. Magnificent. Thank you, Thank you.
The Apache Wedding Prayer is absolutely beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
I used the Apache Wedding Prayer in a scrapbook I made when I was MOH in my friend’s wedding. Love it.
I’d like to use Friar Lawrence’s words in Romeo and Juliet:
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
(Act II, scene vi)
I really want to read “A Lovely Love Story” by Edward Monkton. It’s so very silly and so very us
Do you know what’s even more amazing? In the Ruth passage, Ruth is actually saying that to her mother-in-law.
Ruth’s husband has died (as has Naomi’s), and she is willing to accompany her mother-in-law back to Bethlehem, leaving behind her own land and people. Isn’t that a wonderful story? Naomi (her mother-in-law) released her and told her she could stay, as the other daughter-in-law chose to do. But Ruth wouldn’t leave her.
What an example of truly being a family, and building loving relationships with the family you marry into.
I love that verse from Ruth!! And the story behind it (that Nigelsbride described).
Want to know something sad? I think we used the Apache Wedding Prayer as one of two readings at our own wedding … BUT I CAN’T REMEMBER! So much for “the most memorable day of your life”… 
I love the passage from Ruth… but, as a Pastor, it cracks me up that its used in weddings so much, because it’s actually a daughter-in-law / mother-in-law conversation if you look at it in a biblical sense.
Just an idea, if you’re worried about context with these quotes!
I LOVE “The Benediction of the Apaches” and I am using it in my ceremony - my sister will be reading it for us. It’s so beautiful and gives me goosebumps each time I read it without fail. Good choices!
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Mrs. Cheese, Knoxville
Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, CAD Designer
Engagement Date: July 31, 2008
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: October 16, 2008
Venue: Our home and the two acres it sits on
About Me: I’m an emotional girl who loves sentimental things, parenthetical asides, and trying to do things herself. I can cook, sew, am a whiz at planning, terrible at delegating, and totally in love with my fiancé (who will be my second husband but first love of the rest of my life). For our home/ garden/ DIY wedding, we’ll be moonlighting as interior designers, home improvers, and gardeners with the help of our fabulous friends and neighbors. We can’t wait to be married, and are learning how fun getting married can be.
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