Wedding readings by powerful women
Here are five wedding readings from powerful women. These wedding readings are from different times, different continents and from women who are black, brown and/or disabled.
Remember, a Celebrant Wedding gives you the opportunity to include absolutely any readings or music. You can choose wedding readings that are authentic to you. Here are some of my favourite wedding readings for modern couples making meaningful choices.
I specialise in creating feminist and gender equal wedding ceremonies that are unique, warm and joyful!
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You Deserve a Lover - Frida Kahlo
You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.
You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.
You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.
You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.
You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.
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The Hot Priest’s speech from Fleabag - Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say & do things you never thought you would do.
It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there, so no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own.
I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy.
But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do.
Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.”
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On the Radio - Regina Spektor
No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
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Bold - Amahla
In strength I can say that you saved me
Because I've become, what you’ve made me
Within your arms there’s safety
You make me believe
That I’m ready to give you more
If I may be so Bold
I can’t deny I’m unsteady
Taking my own advice
I will adhere to my convictions
And put emotions ahead of pride
Make me feel things I never
Thought I'd feel in my whole damn lifе
You are what I’ve been missing
Our moment has arrived
In strength I can say that you saved me
Because I've become what you’ve made me
Within your arms there’s safety
You make me believe
That I’m ready to give you more
If I may be so Bold
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Variations on the Word Love By Margaret Atwood
This is a word we use to plug holes with.
It’s the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts.
Add lace and you can sell it.
We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions.
There are whole magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too.
How do we know it isn’t what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard?
As for the weed-seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there’s the two of us.
This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters,
too sparse
to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It’s not love we don’t wish to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will have to do.
It’s a single vowel in this metallic silence,
a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
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These are just some of my favourites - I’ve actually got a huge range of ideas for readings that I share with couples I create ceremonies for. What are your favourites? Tell me in the comments.
