Tricky situation - any advice?

Thanks for sending us your reading. We've read it through and if course, it's beautiful. However, we have one biblical reading which is pretty serious and obviously, the vicar/priest is doing a sermon thing. Do you think you might be able to lighten yours up a bit? We were hoping to have a sweet funny counterpoint to all the seriousness and we think you'd be brilliant at it. It's difficult over email but shall I send you some ideas of what might work?

Eeek, ooo goodness, i dont really know what to say apart from i am sorry your in this position. Its never nice to have to let someone down, even gently when you know they have worked so hard. I dont know how your friendship with him goes, but is he likely to be touchy about it? I guess you have to think about the type of person he is and go from there.

He is probably thinking he wrote a really good, heartfelt speech, oh bless him. and bless you too, i do think though that you need to approach him about it, how ever you decide to, because the last thing you want is for it to be wrong and I am sure he would feel the same.

Perhaps ask him to re-read and ask how it sounds to him?

Maybe ask him to take a different approach?

You like it, but you would really like to loose the seriousness and the mention of how tough marriage is, whilst it is good advice, it doesnt have a place in the speech?

I would call him and say exactly that (maybe after a bit of re-wording )! Minus the 'preachiness' but I think your point about the Vicar saying those things are valid. I think that surely he would be understanding of that fact that you've all spent time discussing various things that aren't in the first draft of the reading. Of course, show your appreciation, but I think you have really valid points that he should not feel offended by. At the end of the day, he probably feels really honoured to have been asked to do this reading - by asking if he could write his own, it kind of feels like he wants to make it personal (has he?), but my view is that surely he wants to do his best to make it suitable for YOUR wedding.

Bottom line - I think you just need to have an honest chat with him. He's a friend, after all.

This sounds perfectly put to me. Try and emphasise that you think it's great and you appreciate the time that must have gone in to writing it, but you just wanted to take a slightly different tack with it as you wanted something lighthearted to counteract the seriousness of the biblical reading and the vicar's sermon.

What ForTheLoveOfMrsBrown is perfect.

I'm assuming he's a close friend hence why your OH chose him to be an Usher. I would have no problem at all approaching one of my close friends about this and not be worried about it. I'm sure he will understand.

Why is there not a [hail] emoticon?! Thank you all so much.

I don't know him very well myself; I have met him a number of times just to say a quick hello, but the first (and only) time I have properly met him is when he stayed with us for a couple of nights last month. Unfortunately I felt like he didn't 100% approve of our relationship - we are both quite outgoing, bossy people and we tease each other and bicker (in jest!) a lot. I am also very organised and tend to, er, 'direct' OH sometimes and the friend did make a few comments (to OH when I wasn't there) about how he felt the relationship was balanced (!) and he also 'told us off' that my name appeared first in all of the wedding stationary which is not 'proper'. To be honest I found him a bit Victorian in some of his values and after he had left, OH commented that he had gone more serious and traditionalist (and returned strongly to his religion - he mentioned God and his influence a LOT) and if I'm totally honest, I don't think OH would have asked him to be an usher / do the reading had he realised, but they were close uni friends and hadn't spent a significant amount of time in each other's company since the friend moved back in with his family last year.

We've started to collect ideas ready to present him with a bit more of an idea.

Eurgh, what a rotten situation!

Could you find or write something yourselves and tell him that you really want this new reading as the words mean a lot to you and express what you want to say? Asking him to re-write his might leave you in the same situation again but nearer the time. Hope you get it sorted.

Pick out the bits you like and highlight those, it's easier to take criticism when there is also praise. Then ask him to shorten it to what ever length you need it to be. Otherwise as he was a drama teacher, could you tell him that you have changed your mind and find him a poem or one of Shakespeares sonnets to read. Otherwise could you change your mum's reading to a more light hearted one to balance it out?

Just about the wedding stationery, I've always thought the bride's name went first traditionally. This was because her parents would host so it'd say "Mr and Mrs Bridefamily invite you to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Bride to Mr John Groom" and she'd then go first on everything else too. Not saying that anyone sticks to this necessarily now (on our stationery we went with whatever 'sounded' best on each bit) but your name first is traditional anyhow.