Favorite Wedding Readings...

from: The Art of Marriage
by Wilferd A. Peterson

A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage, the little things are the big things...

It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once each day.

It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is speaking words of appreciation and
demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right partner...
It is being the right partner.

---

Marriage Joins Two People
in the Circle of Its Love
by Edmund O'Neill

Marriage is a commitment to life -- to the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other human relationship can equal, a joining that is promised for a lifetime.

Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life's most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each other's best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. There may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child.

Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller; memories are fresher; commitment is stronger; even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly.

Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing love through the seasons of life.

When two people pledge to love and care for each other in marriage they create a spirit unique to themselves, which binds them closer than any spoken or written words.
Marriage is a promise, a potential, made in the hearts of two people who love, which takes a lifetime to fulfill.

---

Just Married
by Peter Schmitt
from Country Airport (Copper Beech Press)

Oh, they can be forgiven such innocent indulgence,
the couple whose car we saw in the darkened parking garage today --
the white spray paint filling the rear window, "Just Married,"
and the date, now more than two weeks old.

Let them enjoy this extended moment as long as they can,
let them feel this way always.
For their lives, all history, could have begun on that day.
Regardless that the buoyant numerals and letters,
like the asking price of a car,
would appear insensibly reversed
if, driving, they glanced back;
the message looms between them and the world
which will always be trying to gain on them.

And if in noon glare their first full wedded day
they cut with a room service knife the strings to the cans
clinking like obligations,
they will not let go yet this brief announcement.

Oh, the elements might eventually combine to erase them,
enough downpours, or the blistering sun,
but by the time the words no longer quite ring true,
it will be their own hands that make them vanish.

Then let it end happily, in a bright lather of suds,
gentle hiss of the hose and the radio,
the two together, hands crossing the glass
until what is revealed are their own faces:
hovering where their older, wiser friends had been that day,
imprinting the letters, the numbers, and giving them their first push
down that road in a storm of rice and flowers.

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