Unique and meaningful (and sometimes funny) wedding blessings for your big day…

My ceremony planning kit contains hundreds of suggestions for wedding blessings, readings and prayers.

However, given that my couples share similar qualities of warmth, wit and humour, it is with confidence that I could safely offer just 10 readings in my kit!

Gone are the days of overly staid, pompous wedding ceremonies.

Generation Y couples are taking the stage now – they are modern-day, willing to break fresh ground, and love being unique. They also love wedding ceremonies that are meaningful without being overly sentimental. Their choices of wedding blessings are fresh, original, sometimes funny, but always meaningful.

Scroll down for the Top 10 wedding blessings* I’ve noticed emerge as strong favourites over the past few years…

* New in 2013 (therefore not in this list yet): Marriage is a Promise — a wedding blessing celebrating friendship.

Which blessing would you choose? Do you have a different one you love? If so, what is it?

1. Right Now, Right Here by Anita Revel. This is a piece I wrote for my couples when they complained too many readings were overly flossy and fluffy.

Right now, right here; this moment is the culmination of a thousand moments – ordinary ones, magical ones, memorable ones, and perhaps ones that you’d rather forget!

This blessing was published in the book, Princess For a Day, Goddess For Life, and permission is granted to copy and share the blessing with due credit to the author.

2. Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr Seuss. The opening stanza in this epic poem says it all:

Congratulations! Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!

I absolutely adore this piece in a ceremony – especially watching moods lift and smiles broaden as everyone gets carried away on the wave of adventure and limitless life choices. As it is long (around five minutes for the full version), it is best read by a friend accustomed to performance and theatrics, and who knows how to engage an audience with voice and gesture.

3. Hug O’ War by Shel Silverstein. Couples with children (especially kids with a theatrical bent!) who want to involve them in the ceremony, choose this two-line ditty-style reading. It is easy for the kids to read, and never fails to get guests grinning.

4. The Art of Good Marriage by Wilfred Arlan Peterson. This is often read by the grandmothers or favourite aunties who have been married a while and can read this knowing it’s the truth. The premise is that “happiness in marriage is not something that just happens,” and, “It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.”

5. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. For the literature lovers, the paragraph that discusses the reality of love and passion is a popular choice.

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides … Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

6. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. A favourite childhood  story for many, the discussion between Rabbit and Skin Horse strikes at the heart of what “REAL” is. Being real, can hurt sometimes, it doesn’t happen all at once, and although “by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby,” it doesn’t matter because the people that really love you only see your beauty.

7. Fair Dinkum Love by Kim Cockerell (another Marriage Celebrant, located in Geelong, Victoria). Kim keeps it real in this catchy prose about what real love (as opposed to trophy love) is.

Fair dinkum love is not about romance or image or success. Fair dinkum love is about two average people adoring and accepting each other for who they are.

8. Elemental Blessing by Anita Revel (based on the Cherokee prayer). Being spiritual (but not religious), some couples wish to honour Spirit by acknowledging their earth and elements.

At this time, here at this place and under this glorious sun, we are truly blessed by our mother earth, father sun, sister ocean and brother wind … May these elements combined mean that you…

9. Weird Love by Dr Seuss. Not so much a reading as a quote, this appeals to couples with a quirky sense of humour.

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

10. Whatever Makes You Happy by Powderfinger. Whether it’s this song  or any other, lyrics pack a punch when offered in the spoken word. Couples often have a favourite song that is “theirs”, that transports them to the place where they first met, the moment they first kissed, or the moment they first realised their hearts and souls were in true alignment. Whichever song you choose to be read aloud in your ceremony, this chorus just about sums it up…

Dream on together
Leaning against each other
However it happens I hope
Its whatever makes you happy

* Due to copyright laws I’m unable to post the full text of each piece of prose, but I can show you a hard copy when we meet in person.

Further… I know the above list is true, because my couples tend to share the same qualities. They:

• are warm-hearted, open-minded and love to smile;
• are realists or spiritual, and although they respect the religious leanings of guests, tend not to be religious themselves;
• care about their day, but are not obsessed to the point of bridezilla;
• make decisions with their guests in mind, but ultimately every dotted-i and crossed-t is a reflection of their own personality and pizazz;
• are at once cool and calm, yet buzzing with happiness when it comes to saying “I do.” And above all;
• have a love for life that is only matched by their love for each other.

Shine on!
Anita Revel