If you're not getting married in a church, how do you give your service that sought after personal touch? Readings, says Claire Adams, as she hunts down the perfect pieces for her big day...
Lee and I are having a non-religious ceremony so the readings are very important to me. Without any hymns or religious content the vows won't take very long at all so including some meaningful passages read by our nearest and dearest is essential.
Deciding who to ask to read the pieces was pretty easy. We are going for four readings in total read by two of my closest friends (Liana and Vicky), my Uncle, Lee's aunt and two of his younger cousins.
At first Vicky and Liana had (slightly drunkenly) promised to rap their "performance" to the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune.
Vicky had heard it successfully done at a colleague's wedding and was convinced that she would have the guts to duet with Liana at our service with the opening line "Now this is a story all about Claire..."
I was super excited about this - meaningful but funny with the added bonus of a musical interlude. Unfortunately a few days later, now sober, the girls said they had decided against the Fresh Prince rendition and would be doing a normal reading they'd choose themselves, which I'm also very much looking forward to hearing.
For the other readings I enlisted the help of my sister Sarah, a recent English graduate and spent a good while searching online for the right pieces. Sometimes Googling can be a little overwhelming. You get dragged into forums, online conversations from 2007 and the typical "Getting Hitched" websites that you worry 99% of the public use.
My sister suggested using a reading from a film or an excerpt from a song and whilst I do really like that idea I also don't want to seem too 'try hard' or even worse too naff (I'm not sure how Buble's lyrics would sound being read out loud).
I'm still looking for the right pieces now and won't rush the decision just yet, but I did come across this reading which I found pretty funny and admittedly quite relevant (in parts). I'm not going to use it in the ceremony as aside from it not really being the right tone I also don't want to reveal my true colours quite so early on in our marriage...
LOVE THIS WRITER? Follow her on Twitter @claireads.
MORE!
Read all the latest posts from Claire Bride-To-Be Blog here.