Inspirational Quote!

Love is the only game where two can play and both win

- Erma Freesman

Reading: Sooner or Later

"Sooner or Later"

by Anon
Sooner or later we begin to understand
that love is more than verses on valentines,
and romance in the movies.
We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true,
the most important thing in our lives.
For love is the creator of our favourite memories
and the foundation of our fondest dreams.
Love is a promise that is always kept,
a fortune that can never be spent,
a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places.
And this radiance that never fades,
this mysterious and magical joy, is the greatest treasure of all -
one known only by those who love.

Inspirational Quote!

Love is a mysterious science. Love is finite - it is limited to what you can give.  But, the more you give - the more you have. 

Inspirational quote!

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

- Henry David Thoreau

Reading: philosophical

The reading below may be a philosophy you carry with you... 
It may also suit you if you want to involve  a younger person in the ceremony - which could be fun...

"All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," by Robert Fulgham

All of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned...

Share everything.


Play fair.


Don't hit people.


Put things back where you found them.


Clean up your own mess.


Don't take things that aren't yours.


Say sorry when you hurt somebody.


Wash your hands before you eat.


Flush.


Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Give them to someone who feels sad.


Live a balanced life.


Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day.


Take a nap every afternoon.


Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Did you know...

In a Civil ceremony in Australia, the minimum number of guests required is two (over the age of 18).  This is because there must be two witnesses.

Reading: Shakespeare it

Shakespeare 

When I have time, I'll try pulling an adapted memorable Shakespeare medley together. Surely there are enough memorable one-liners to infuse a ceremony - and everyone has *that* friend who can pull off the most amazing shakespearian prose!

But meanwhile, below Sonnet 116 is one of the more popular Shakespearian choices.  Ever endearing and reflexive - and possibly a good conversation starter for the canapes after the ceremony, "So, what did you think about Shakey's" your guests could say...

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

- William Shakespeare