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Skinnyrock
Dedicated July 2023 Suffolk

HELP Reading required for civil ceremony

Skinnyrock, 23 September, 2012 at 20:21 Posted on Planning 0 2

I am looking for a reading for a civil ceremony that my step-dad can read. We are already having OH's step sister reading a Pam Ayres poem but need something short but heartfelt for my stepdad. I have lived with him since I was 3 and would like to involve him in the wedding. The only thing is he trips over his words and doesn't do any public speaking. The women in my family do all the talking. So really I am looking for suggestions, steering clear of Shakespeare or anything too wordy.

2 replies

Latest activity by gonnaBMrsF, 25 September, 2012 at 10:10
  • pandorasbox
    Beginner August 2012
    pandorasbox ·
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    We didn't have readings, but if we had have done I was seriously considering picking a section or quote from this poem by Carol Ann Duffy which talks about how precious moments are together. I probably would have gone for the 'Time slows...shining hour' and added the 'love spins gold' bit to make a very short paragraph.

    Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
    bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
    We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
    or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

    For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
    like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
    turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
    we are millonaires, backhanding the night

    so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
    no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
    hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
    no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

    than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
    but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.

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  • D
    Savvy September 2012
    delphi13 ·
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    How about the below, it has a few older/longer words but it's quite short and sweet.

    Cloths of Heaven - W. B. Yeats

    Had I the heaven's 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.

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  • gonnaBMrsF
    Beginner October 2013
    gonnaBMrsF ·
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    How about this?

    Extract from Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)

    "You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. And even loved in spite of ourselves.

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