Mollie asked today if I would post the excerpts we used for our two ceremony readings.  Here they are!

A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway

That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, walking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once.

The Velveteen Rabbit
Margery Williams

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a person* 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.”
*wording slightly modified from the original version

Previously: Choosing My Venue, Out of Town Baskets, Do Not Disturb Signs, The Welcome Party (Part 1, Part 2), Lighting the Lawn and Porch, Bathroom Baskets, DIY Coat Check Tags, Ceremony Music, Our Same Day Edit Video, Getting Pretty, Portraits, The Ceremony, Cocktail Hour Decor, DIY Wine Glass Charms, Time Capsule Guest Book, Cocktail Hour Entertainment: Blackjack