Houston, we have a marriage license.
Tonight we’re poring over bible verses and restaurants and flower options, and although I heartily believe that love is patient and love is kind, I refuse to have 1st Corinthians read during our ceremony. Just because. I think I’ve heard it at every wedding I’ve ever been to, including my own.
But I don’t believe I’ve actually heard Song of Solomon read at a wedding, even though it’s listed as a popular selection.
It was while we were shoulder to shoulder, looking up bible verses on the computer, beholding Song of Solomon that I realized we are completely, utterly, and perfectly matched.
Me: My hair is like a flock of goats!
Otto: Really? My hair is like A Flock of Seagulls.
Congrats on the license! We read a passage from Song of Solomon at our wedding. Our priest was a bit shocked, but I did a lot of shocking him throughout the planning process. Thankfully, we all survived ;)
Song of Solomon was going to be the reading at my wedding. The one that never happened. Now I sing the song of Solo Mom instead. (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)
Hmmm … the lyrics to their hit song go “And I ran, I ran so far away …”
Nope, that’s not gonna work …
hahaha! i read a shakespeare sonnet for my best friend’s wedding, because she truly loves his works. i like 1 corin. too, but i can understand not wanting to have it read just like the other eleventy-billion people that get married every year.
one song i really love and think more people should do at weddings? “I Will Be Here” by steven curtis chapman. i think it’s a beautiful song. don’t know if you’re having any songs, but thought i’d share. (here’s a link if you’re not familiar: http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/wedding/li153.shtml)
Personally I’d recommend Song of Solomon 5:3
“I have taken off my clothes! Why should I put them on again?”
You can’t be embarrassed if it’s in the Bible, right?
I had the story of Ruth read — well, the part where it says, “Where you will go; I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. Where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. And thus may the Lord do to me or worse if anything save death separates me from you.”
While actually spoken from a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, I can think of no better picture of a marriage — certainly, “your people/my people” part.
And yes, yes, you two are perfectly matched.
I once when to a wedding where the entire gathering stood in the lapping surf of the Pacific ocean, while the ¿minister? stood with joint in one hand and beer in the other wishing them all the strenght and bonding of the cosmos.
Apparently he knew nothing of super novas and black holes. Not that I am truly sure they were ever really married, but they split up a year later.
I’m with Patricia, go with Ruth.
Flock of Seagulls. Heh. You are both such wonderfully witty people :-)
we had something else – poem, maybe? who knows what. My husband had thrown out his back and was on muscle relaxers. I was a bit stressed. We had one of those earthy-funky-crunchy-UU weddings, though.
It sounds like the two of you are perfectly matched. Bodes well for the future!
I’m a lurker but wanted to come out of the woodwork to say “congratulations!!”
We spent weeks writing our own vows and drafting sentimental odes to one another (we were 23 and that’s what 23 year olds do) and it didn’t matter one bit what we said because there was a stiff breeze that day and the wedding guests couldn’t hear a word we said but they enjoyed 30 minutes of bird song and the wind in the pines. So you might what to save yourselves the headache and play one of those ‘waves crashing’ or ‘rain forest at dawn’ CD’s.
Although Flock of Seagulls is a good bet too.
If you’re going to go with 80’s music, how can you forget Peaches and Herb. Seems “Reunited” would be perfect!
I think we eschewed biblical verses for the Navajo Wedding Prayer. I think it was Navajo. All of the biblical verses seemed to sexist to me. Guess I’m just that type of girl…
Congrats!!
Flock of Seagulls? That’s what my son’s hair looks like, too.
I was going to suggest the Verses of Ruth as well but I’ve been beaten to the punch. I’ve sung them at a few weddings over the years.
The best bet, is to find something that resonates with you. If its been done before… so what. Its special to you and Otto. :)
YAY, yer gettin all legal ‘n’ shit. :)
Oh and why does your “leave a reply” information box hate me? it keeps scrambling my information.
But I type it over again anyway because, well you are worth it my dear.
We had a reading from Genesis – God’s covanent with Noah and his people. Rainbows are for weddings, right?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Song of Solomon read at a wedding either…but just think how shocked everyone would be if you had verse 5 read!:
“Your two breasts are like two fawns,
Twins of a gazelle
Which feed among the lilies.”
Oh yes, I have a strange sense of humor; yes, yes I do! :-D
Anyhoo…congrats on the license!
You could walk down the aisle to Space Age Love Song!
We had my sister-in-law read John Donne’s Valediction Forbidding Mourning at our wedding, which lead to lots of snickering from the English majors in the wedding and lots of glassy stares from everyone else.
Good times.
That Otto is a good man – witty and all – It is my husband’s smart assed ways that have kept us together for *gasp* 12 years (9 of them married, all of them when we were way to young for a committed relationship)
As for Bible verses…I scorned 1Corinthians for the same reason. We went with the Ruth-Naomi verses – I absolutely needed witnesses to hear Charlie Brown say my nutcase family was now his as well! :) From Song of Solomon – I love 8:6-7:
6 Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy [a] unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame. [b]
7 Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it [c] would be utterly scorned.
(I took it from the Today’s NIV – as it is gender neutral)
Congratulations on getting your marriage license!
We used part of the Song of Solomon that mentions being taken to the hills of Lebanon to live, as that was the name of the town where we bought our house. We (sadly) avoided the racy bits, though.
bridgitte, that wouldn’t happen to be in MO, would it?
(oops, sorry for the typo in your name, brigitte)
Some of my favorite A Course In Miracles text:
…Shining in the golden light that reaches from the bright, endless circle that extends forever, is your holy relationship, beloved of God himself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, immortal yet on earth. How great the power that lies in it. Time waits upon its will, and earth will be as it would have it be. Here is no separate will, nor the desire that anything be separate. Its will has no exceptions, and what it wills is true. Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked and disappears. For at its center Christ has been reborn, to light his home with vision that overlooks the world. Would you not have this holy home be yours as well? No misery is here, but only joy.
We actually did have Song of Solomon read at our wedding — the bit hamiam posts, plus a few other bits. It wasn’t racy although my friend who did the reading said she found it a little “hot” to read at a wedding. She’s just lucky I didn’t go with the “He put his hand to the latchkey, and it came away dripping with myrrh” passage, or my personal favourite, “I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers.”
We also had Shakespeare — the “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / admit impediments” one.
Congrats and good luck!
Holy Poo, I’m slow!!!! I get it NOW. I’ve been trying to get the “flock of goats” reference to hair and I’ve been stumped.
Stumped until it FINALLY dawned on me (because apparently I’m slow) that we get cashmere from goats!!!!
(I think it means that your hair is soft and petable — or at least that’s what I think of cashmere. Now if it said your hair was like a herd of musk ox — then you’d have something — apparently, their hair is the softest stuff in the world — and I hear good things about camels too….)
Back to my knitting now.
I might leave out the part where he refers to his beloved as a hefer though.
We had the Song of Songs read at our wedding, and while my friend was somewhat embarrassed at having to read “I see my love, like a gazelle, leaping and bounding and coming”, etc. in front of a whole church o’people, our priest actually had some great things to say about the reading. He reminded us that when my voice began sounding less like an enchanting dove and more like the cawing of a crow, or when my husband’s leaping and bounding towards me became more of a gimpy half-walk, we’d still have one another and the covenant we were promising before the whole church o’people and, of course, God.
Our priest got big laughs and made me cry at the same time. Go figure. Now, if he’d only worked Flock of Seagulls in there, he’d have KILLED!
Good luck picking readings. I remember it as the ONLY stress-free part of the wedding planning.
My husband and I went to a wedding where a very good looking woman read Song of Songs as Sheila described. Our dear single friend was so turned on by her reading that he nearly leapt and bound towards her as soon as the ceremony was over. Quite a sexy verse as far as the Bible goes.
But not nearly as sexy as Flock of Seagulls. Now I’ll be singing that song in my head all night long.
We chose Song of Solomon for our wedding as well! Different but not obscure…that’s what I like!
The aversion to having 1 Corinthians 13 read sounds a lot like my husband and I at our wedding last May. I said, “That’s about ALL love, agape love and not just romantic love, and I HATE that everyone is so danged lazy and just has it read because they can’t come up with anything better.”
And, strangely enough, we DID have Song of Solomon read at our wedding, too. This one: http://bible.cc/songs/8-7.htm and this one: http://bible.cc/songs/6-3.htm
*laughs* I think you’re having my wedding, from the sounds of things: non-traditional, trinity knot wedding rings, no 1 Corinthians, and lots of fun with Song of Solomon. *chuckles*
Sorry, Becky, my Lebanon is in New England (it’s really surprising how many there are, too)!