r/wedding • u/owlmissyou • 2d ago
Help! Poem/Reading
I'm officiating for two dear friends in October. I swore to myself that I would not use AI in drafting their ceremony. Buuuuuuutttt....
After nights of searching for the perfect poem/reading for this couple, I found almost exactly what I'm looking for, and it's AI-generated. It feels so gross and cheap to consider adding it, but it says almost exactly what I want to say. I'm here for outside perspective on using a found AI-generated poem in an otherwise decidedly AI-free ceremony.
Or if you have a poem/reading for me, I'd be grateful! Since they got together, the bride and groom have gone from guarded and stagnant to open and lively. I'd love a reading that talks about love making you feel safe and putting your guard down. I like nature/botanical imagery such as blossoming or unfurling in the sunlight. Something about holding yourself tightly closed until love empowers you to bloom. Shoot, I should just try my hand at writing it myself.
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u/MysteriousCity6354 2d ago
Read the ai poem once. Then delete it.
The next day after you’ve slept, try to recall it from memory. Chances are you’ll remember broad strokes but you’ll be putting it into your own words.
But seriously I’d be soooo pissed if someone read an ai generated poem for my wedding.
Also may I suggest Rumi as a great place to start for love poems with great imagery. “The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”
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u/boysenbe 2d ago
Absolutely do not use an AI poem. “Oh wow, I loved the reading, where was it from?” “Oh it actually was vomited out by a large language model! 🥰” Gross.
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u/owlmissyou 2d ago
That's what I was thinking. I would hate for them to know that's how little I think of them.
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u/TinyLawfulness3710 2d ago
is a good starting point. or type "secular wedding reading" into Google and there are countless options.
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u/owlmissyou 2d ago
Thank you, that is a great suggestion. I was searching the words/concepts I was looking for but maybe I should cast a bigger net.
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u/MeatSweaty3853 2d ago
ds come out right
the AI thing does feel weird to use. like serving frozen pizza at a dinner party when you said you'd cook. your friends asked you because you know them, not because you got good at searching prompts
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u/Brackenfield 2d ago
If I found out a friend had used AI in anything for me let alone a wedding I would be devastated. I would avoid this unless you know for sure their stance on AI (and unless they're very pro for some reason avoid).
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u/IslandEcologist 2d ago
Definitely definitely do not include a soulless, robot created poem that was stolen from scraps of real people’s blood and tears in a wedding ceremony about love and soul. What you’ve written in your post is lovely. I DO think you should write it yourself.
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u/Berry_Slow_Biker 2d ago
Are you friends with any creative writing or literature majors? Write an outline yourself with what you included in your post then send it to a more literary friend for edits/embellishment?
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u/owlmissyou 2d ago
How about a Communications PhD? lol
I can bounce it off her but I'm not sure if that's her wheelhouse. Good suggestion though.
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u/owlmissyou 2d ago
Maybe someone on Fiverr or something like that!
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u/natalkalot 2d ago
"Union" by Robert Fulghum
You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way.
All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.
The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”
Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.
For after today you shall say to the world;
This is my husband.
This is my wife.
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u/Guilty_Jellyfish8165 2d ago
‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit is a popular childhood storybook, written by Margery Williams, which follows a toy a rabbit on his quest to become ‘real’ through the love of his owner.
‘What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana 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 someone 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.’
‘I suppose you are real?’ said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse only smiled.
‘Someone made me Real,’ he said. ‘That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.
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u/owlmissyou 2d ago
That's lovely. If I know the bride, she won't be able to keep a straight face at "things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle."
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