Does anyone ever really grow up? Getting married is, of course, a huge responsibility of the “real” world, but deep inside everyone is still a kid at heart, no matter what happens in life. To honor that inner child, many couples have chosen to include excerpts from beloved children’s books in the ceremony and reception. Lauren and Lauren, featured in our Real Gay Weddings, included a reading from The Velveteen Rabbit. Nick and Paul, also from our Real Gay Weddings, also included an excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit along with a passage from The Dance by: Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
Children’s authors just have a way of explaining love and friendship so simply and beautifully. Here are our top five children’s fiction quotes to include in your wedding.
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
It’s a classic series of stories that evokes deep emotions of an eternal bond. You can’t blame us for selecting two quotes instead of one.
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”
“I think we dream so that we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Burnett was never one for short sentences like those in Pooh, but this passage describes perfectly an endless love.
“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting though and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. The sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone’s eye.”
Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery
This is the second of the nine book series of Anne of Green Gables. The talkative and opinionated Anne has a flare for the dramatic and poetic, but this is perfect for the understated couple.
“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music; perhaps… perhaps… love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.”
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
Ah, the romance of marriage. Once you tie the knot with you hubby, you’ll (literally) never have to look far to find comfort, love or hope.
“It I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any farther than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
The Search by Shel Silverstein
This poem is a bit odd, like most Shel Silverstein works are, but it has a wonderful message. What you have wanted and searched for so long (the love of your life) is now yours. What fun things will you be searching for next?
“I went to find the pot of gold
That’s waiting where the rainbow ends.
I searched and searched and searched and searched
and searched and searched and then-
There it was, deep in the grass,
under an old and twisty bough.
It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine at last…
What do I search for now?”
Photo: winniethepoohpictures.blogspot.com; desertgirlsvintage.blogspot.com; alephbet.com; Graphic Tales; thesecularparent.com
