Keep your guests smiling with these unique and contemporary wedding ceremony readings.

Photo credit: Paul Santos Photography Jess and Alex’s Wedding

I wanna be yours - John Cooper Clarke

First up is the epic John Cooper Clarke, an English performance poet who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s when he became known as a punk poet. I love his fun and ironic take on a classic love poem for me; it’s the definition of modern romance. You may also recognise it from the Arctic Monkeys album AM where Alex Turner turned it into a song.

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
Breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
Let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
For those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
When you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
Take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
You’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
Hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
That’s how deep is my devotion

Wild Awake - Hilary T. Smith

In her debut novel, Hilary explores the themes of loss, love, and what it means to be alive. We choose an extract from the book as a reading at our wedding ceremony. It’s a short reading but no less powerful and full of meaning. I really enjoy the way Hilary describes the adventure of love how we embark on a path of exploration to really get to know someone, it takes you down unbeaten tracks leading the wanderlust to a rare sighting. She beautifully describes the language of love how it allows you to see someone in ways they would never see themselves, flaws and all and love them even more for it. It also reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Vincent Van Gogh “Normality is a paved road; It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.”

An Excerpt from Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn't know were there, even the ones they wouldn't have thought to call beautiful themselves.

The Book of Love - The Magnetic Fields

At the request of one of my favourite couples Kat and Hodge, I embarked on a search to find a fresh and real wedding reading that could be read by a couple during their wedding ceremony at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland.

They specifically wanted no cheese, nothing overly sentimental that just wasn’t them. No pressure! I knew this reading would fit the bill it did and went down a storm, especially as our readers surprised us all and rewrote the final verse entirely personalised for the happy couple. What a moment. What would you write in the book of love?

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing

But I, I love it when you read to me
And you, you can read me anything

The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb

But I, I love it when you sing to me
And you, you can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we're all too young to know

But I, I love it when you give me things
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings

I, I love it when you give me things
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings

In that still and settled place - Edward Monkton

I’ve loved Giles Andreae British artist, poet and greeting card writer since I was a teenager when he created Purple Ronnie under his pseudonym of Edward Monkton. If you ever need a boost of joy in your day visit his website for a Random Thought of the Day www.edwardmonkton.com This reading perfectly sums up what I aspire to create in my ceremony’s moments of intimacy where you’ll both feel like the only two people in the room.

In that still and settled place

In that still and settled place
There’s nobody but you
You’re where I breathe my oxygen
You’re where I see my view

And when the world feels full of noise
My heart knows what to do
It finds that still and settled place
And dances there with you.

The Bridge Across Forever - Richard Bach

Sometimes you come across a line in a book or song, and it stops you in your tracks. It makes you smile and
recall someone important to you, or a moment in time you cherish dearly. It happened the first time I ever read this piece from American writer Richard Bach who wrote this line “Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life” just perfect for those romantic rebellious souls amongst us.

The Bridge Across Forever

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up,
chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.