Finding a unique wedding reading can be surprisingly difficult. The internet is full of the same handful of poems, movie quotes and Bible verses that have been appearing at weddings for decades. They might be beautiful, but they don’t always resonate if your teenage years were spent in band tees, lurking on music forums or writing questionable poetry in the margins of your school books.

Wedding readings don’t have to come from traditional wedding sources and the best wedding reading is rarely the most famous one. Look through the books on your shelves, revisit the novels and movies that shaped your teenage years, read the lyrics that got you through difficult times.

If you’re planning a wedding that leans a little darker, a little stranger or simply a little more you, here are some places to start.

For the hopeless romantics

“The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nanna came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

“How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

For the goths and dark romantics

“Love Sonnet XVII” by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

“On Marriage” by Kahlil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of your be alone, Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

“Bright Star” by John Keats

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

For elder emos

This is not the time to ask your best friend to stand up and dramatically recite an entire My Chemical Romance song, but sections from your favourite alt love songs are a great place to start for your readings (and vows).

“Still Into You” – Paramore

Can’t count the years on one hand that we’ve been together
I need the other one to hold you, make you feel, make you feel better
It’s not a walk in the park to love each other
But when our fingers interlock, can’t deny, can’t deny you’re worth it
‘Cause after all this time
I’m still into you

I should be over all the butterflies
But I’m into you (I’m into you)
And, baby, even on our worst nights
I’m into you (I’m into you)
Let ’em wonder how we got this far
‘Cause I don’t really need to wonder at all
Yeah, after all this time
I’m still into you

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark” – Death Cab for Cutie

Love of mine, someday you will die
But I’ll be close behind, I’ll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied
Illuminate the “no”s on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark

“First Day of My Life” – Bright Eyes

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They’re spreading blankets on the beach
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
Yeah, these things take forever, I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

“The World Is Ugly” – My Chemical Romance

These are the eyes and the lies of the taken
These are their hearts
But their hearts don’t beat like ours
They burn ’cause they are all afraid

For every one of us
There’s an army of them
But you’ll never fight alone
‘Cause I wanted you to know

That the world is ugly
But you’re beautiful to me
Well are you thinking of me now?