readings

[janinegirly]

how do you decide which readings are done? also who is selected to read them--close friends or members of the wedding party? thanks..
still so much to do!

 

[robbie3982]

We''re not having a religious ceremony, so we wanted a non-religious reading. We''re using blessin of the hands and are having FI''s twin 15 year old nieces read it. We wanted to have all of the nieces and nephews (there are 9 of them!) participate in the wedding in one way or another, but we didn''t have to have an enormous wedding party either, so this was the perfect way for us to include some more people.

 

[labbielove]

We are having a Catholic ceremony (not a full mass) so are having
a first reading, responsorial psalm (read, not sung), second reading and a Gospel (which is read by the officiant)

we are also having some type of secular reading/poem at some point, but haven''t picked it yet. i''m not sure if this is allowed at all religious ceremonies, but our officiant (my best friend''s dad) is very lenient, at least with us!

So, we need 4 readers. I have asked my one best friend to read since I''m only having my sisters stand up with me as bm''s it was so important to include her. I''m not sure who else we may ask, I would like to have my one brother read since my other brother is walking me down the aisle and my 3 sisters are my bms.

Technically you can ask whoever you would like- I chose my friend as discussed above, it was a way to include someone important without making them a bm (i didn''t want too many)

If you are not having a religious ceremony, I don''t think there are any set #, type or format for readings.

 

[Pandora II]

I''m having three readings at my secular ceremony.

One is A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton and my brother is reading it.
The second a close friend of ours will read - haven''t chosen it yet and
the third will be read by the celebrant and will close the ceremony - still hunting for that too!

We have opted to use two people who are otherwise not involved in the wedding party but have a lot to do with our relationship and lives. My brother introduced us and the other friend is my political mentor and really made a huge impact on my life at a time I was very unhappy by believing in me and my abilities and also a close friend of FI.

 

[akw94]

Janine, I think is totally your call. Do you want any readings? If so, is there a particular person (in or out of the wedding party) that you''d like to read it? I''d just pick what you want.
We opted not to have any readings, just b/c I wanted the ceremony fairly short. The officiant is doing an initial blessing and then we''ll have the vows, also have the unity candle, wine blessing and wine glass breaking so I thought that was enough for us.
I had a good friend that had each person in the wedding party do a short reading, some read poems, others read parts of a longer reading.

What do you want?

 

[Blenheim]

We spent several months looking at different readings and thinking about them before choosing. We had our usher read one of them. My brother was supposed to read the other but ended up not coming, so our pastor agreed to read it instead.

One piece of advice, in retrospect -- if your readings aren''t very typical wedding readings, run them by a few people before choosing them. We choose ours at a point in the process when we just weren''t asking other people for opinions because we were tired of people arguing with us. I think that some people took the first reading the wrong way, which is a bit disappointing.

Pandora -- we used "A Blessing for a Marriage" by James Dillet Freeman to close the ceremony and I think that it worked really well. We had people asking us for more information about it afterwards, one of whom was in the process of helping a friend find readings for her wedding ceremony.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

We had a close friend (who introduced us!) read a poem. Kind of tricky to find one since we were having a nonreligious ceremony but we found a good one.

 

[janinegirly]

hi, thanks for the feedback. we are having a traditional ceremony (catholic) and i found out that the book they gave us in precana spells out the order and provides readings. so i''ve been going through that..takes a while and not always the easiest to choose from.
thinking if i have a ceremony vs. full mass, it''s shortened and I would need just 2 readers to select.

anyone thanks to all!

 

[Mandarine]

Hi Janine!

Not really related to readings, but how long is the shortened version?....I think this is what my FI wants to do...

Is there communion at the short version?

M~

 

[janinegirly]

well i think the shorter version is 30mns and the full mass 15mns longer (45mns or so). this may vary from church to church (we only have our church for 1hr--not that i''m complaining, don''t want guests to fall asleep

).

the shorter version does not include communion. from what i heard you have 2 readings, gospel, then the wedding portion where the bride and groom kiss and then that''s it if it''s a ceremony. for a mass, after the wedding portion, it''s collection, communion, more prayers..and that seemed kind of anticlimatic to me. but then, we aren''t super religious and i know for other couples the entire mass is very significant and important to them.

 

[labbielove]

Date: 6/5/2007 12:03:28 PM
Author: Mandarine
Hi Janine!

Not really related to readings, but how long is the shortened version?....I think this is what my FI wants to do...

Is there communion at the short version?

M~

We are having a Catholic ceremony, but not a full mass. Two reasons:
1) the chapel we are using cannot accomodate a full mass because it''s not an active Catholic church (long story, but because it was moved from it''s orignal grounds the priest can''t consecrate the host there)

2) our officiant is a Catholic deacon, and my best friend''s dad. He has known me since second grade and is a second dad to me.
With both of my parents gone, it is so important to me that he be THE officiant (if you have a full mass you have to have a priest present)


But I wanted to point out, if it helps anyone, that even without a full mass (i.e blessing of the host, bringing up the gifts,etc.) you CAN have communion. It''s a communion service. Our deacon offered it to us (he would bring consecrated hosts). We''re not having it, but it is a viable option.