The following ideas can be a great source of inspiration when you are planning your ceremony and reception. They can be incorporated into your own vows - with the permission of your minister or registrar - used as the basis for a reading or as the opening to a speech or added to an invitation, a menu or a table centre as a romantic literary flourish
A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when, at last, it comes.
Mark Twain
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than the ones that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
I think a man and woman should choose each other for life, for the simple reason that a long life with all its accidents is barely enough time for a man and woman to understand each other. And... to understand is to love.
JB Yeats
Immature love says "I love you because I need you"
Mature love says "I need you because I love you"
Confucius
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies
Aristotle
Every heart sings a song, incomplete,
until another heart whispers back.
Those who wish to sing always find a song.
At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet
Plato
The gold of one's heart is far more precious than the gold of one's purse
Chinese Proverb
No road is long with good company
Turkish proverb
When two spiders unite they can tie up a lion
Ethiopian proverb
Shared joy is a double joy. Shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
Swedish proverb
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Walk beside me and just be my friend
Irish proverb
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anonymous but not forgotten
Many timeless wedding lines and verses have been passed down through the
generations until no-one really remembers their origin. Our top ten offerings from unknown sources may not be attributed to anyone in particular, but they are no less powerful for it.
May your hands be forever clasped in friendship
And your hearts forever joined in love
Let those love now, who never loved before
Let those who always loved, now love the more
Love is like a butterfly
Hold it too tight and it will crush
Hold it too loose and it will fly
To the world you might be one person,
But to one person you might be the world
The cure for love is marriage and the cure for marriage is love again
Let those love now who never loved before
Let those who always loved, now love the more
A smile is the light in the window of your face that shows that your heart is home.
A friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you just the same
Love is the symbol of eternity
It wipes out all sense of time
Destroying all memory of a beginning
And all fear of an end
Time to smile
Weddings may be all hearts and flowers but they can also be a source of amusement. Some writers can be as wry as they are romantic - as witty as they are wise - and it is their ability to look at even the most important day with a tongue firmly planted in their cheek that offers modern couples the chance to incorporate some more light-hearted musings into their special occasion. Here are some of our favourites
Marriages are made in heaven -
but then so are thunder, lightning, tornados and hail
Anon
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
Oscar Wilde
My advice to you is to get married.
If you find a good wife, you'll be happy.
If not, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates
Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition!
Samuel Pepys
A lady's imagination is very rapid;
it jumps from admiration to love,
from love to matrimony, in a moment
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
Marriage is the result of the longing for the deep peace of the double bed after the hurly burly of the chaise longue
Attributed to Mrs Patrick Campbell
He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick
And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick
Ogden Nash (The Perfect Husband)
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