Customer Reviews

Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If I ever hear "Love is patient, love is kind" or "Let me not to a marriage of true minds admit impediments" read at a wedding again, it'll be far too soon. The sentiments are nice, but those texts are so incredibly cliche for weddings! Luckily, this book exists to save you from tired & trite wedding readings. "Into the Garden" has tons of non-religious poetry & prose on the subject of marriage & love, & even 1 or 2 unique biblical passages. This is the single best wedding-related book I've bought -- it really helped make our ceremony unique & meaningful to us (& not like those cookie-cutter ceremonies put together by bored ministers)!

This is a fantastic collection of both sacred and secular poems: old (Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert), new (Frost, Larkin, Plath and Stevens) and contemporary (Olds, Milosz, Atwood, Bly). I bought it looking for an intelligently selected group of works, and I certainly found that. What I didn't expect to get in the bargain was an interesting introductory essay on the form and function of marriage in history, and a broad selection of ceremonies, tucked away at the back. In addition to Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and even Zen ceremonies, there was the aptly if somewhat puzzlingly titled, "Non-Theistic Judeo/Christian" ceremony. My fiancee and I had been wondering how to have a ceremony that was formal and traditional, without being either clinical (a civil ceremony) or inappropriate for two agnostics (a religious one). The "Non-theistic" ceremony is adapted from The Book of Common Prayer, but does not refer directly to God or the Church: it's just perfect for us. In summary, a thoughtfully-selected group of poems and ceremonies we'll be glad to have on our shelf, even after all the cake is eaten.

This was the perfect book for me. We borrowed parts of the sample ceremonies to create our own wedding ceremony. The sample ceremonies we used include a Zen Buddhist and a Zen/Unitarian/Humanist wedding which I could not find anywhere else. The Buddhist influence was apparent throughout the book.

Many of the readings were quite wonderful and spiritual. I say spiritual and not religious, since many of the writings appeared to be appropriate for any faith.

This book was invaluable to my husband and I when we planned our wedding a few years ago, though you will need other sources as well (we got some sample wedding ceremonies from the Unitarian Universalism minister that officiated). I have to admit I didn't choose a lot of the poem selections in this book, but I still liked the book because of the sample ceremonies in the back. I was finishing up college and my husband had begun his graduate program, so we were already extremely busy. With the help of this book we were able to write our entire wedding ceremony ourselves. I didn't have much experience with weddings, and I didn't know anything about the usual structure or components of a wedding ceremony. We did not belong to a religion and we were not interested in an impersonal or traditional ceremony. In the back of this book are many wedding ceremony examples for different religions or for a non-religious ceremony. We ended up really liking the Jewish vows and our vows were our own adaptation of those.

I highly recommend taking the time to write your own ceremony. It is such a wonderful time before marriage that you can spend together exploring deeply what marriage means to you and what kind of ceremony you want to celebrate your union with. It helps to have lots of poetry anthologies and books of poetry by your favorite poets. We used a lot of Rumi poems. We even combined a few Rumi poems to create a beautiful reading that felt personal to us. We began the ceremony singing a Sanskrit prayer that meant "May all beings be peaceful and happy". It was nice to have a ceremony that was personally meaningful and combined ideas from many different cultures. We also had two friends compose music to two of "The Dances of Universal Peace". The music was beautiful. During the ceremony we also planted a rose tree.

We always say our vows to each other because they are so beautiful, and on our anniversaries we read through our entire ceremony, and sing the songs.

This book may not be necessary for you, if you are not planning to write the entire ceremony, if you already know a lot about the structure of how to put together a wedding ceremony and have been to a lot of weddings or know people that have been married before you, you have your own ideas already very solid and don't need any creative inspiration, or if there are newer books available that have better poem selections.

"The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you
not knowing how blind I was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."

Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)

Have Fun

I came across this book when my husband and I were composing our service. I found this collection lovely and a real inspiration. Particularly enjoyable were the sample services in the back. We borrowed liberally from several of those services and the celebrant we used liked the language so much that he asked us if he might "borrow" the passages in future celebrations. Agreat book for marrieds-to-be as well as anyone wishing to peruse a thoughtfully compiled collection of poetry and prose.

Lots of wonderful readings for anyone planning a wedding, particularly nonsecular readings. During my own wedding planning, I have not found another source for readings so comprehensive with so many beautiful pieces. Shakespeare, the Bible, and modern poets of many different nationalities are all represented, among many others. If you're looking for passages about love, commitment, and/or marriage, this book has something for everyone's taste. It also contains sample ceremonies for different styles of weddings, some of which are more creative than you will find in any "wedding planning" book. If you are planning a wedding ceremony that is very personalized to you both, or you aren't interested in having a "traditional" ceremony and want to write your own, check out this book for inspiration. You will fall in love with some of the passages.

I have had this book for years (I bought the hardcover long ago), and have used it on many occasions--at friends' weddings/showers, etc., on cards/invitations, in love letters, etc. The selections are varied but uniformly great (nothing hokey or overly-anything), and the quality of the translations (when need) from the original language appears to be top-notch. The author-editors clearly have done their homework. I doubt anyone would regret buying this book.

I've been asked to officiate a Zen wedding in September, and knowing virtually nothing about Zen, I started looking for some good source material to help me put the ceremony together. I googled Zen wedding and this book came up in the search. I also found some reviews that recommended it for that purpose. INTO THE GARDEN: A WEDDING ANTHOLOGY by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell has been, at once, both a disappointment and a pleasant surprise.

My quandary goes something like this; I still don't really know where to start composing a Zen ceremony as this book renders but slight direction in that arena, so my sourcebook search continues. I gleefully did find, however, a book laden with writings and poetry that I am sure to include in ceremonies of a broad scope. This book is one of the finest collections of wedding functional prose I have seen available anywhere. This is followed by a sample script of various types of wedding ceremonies, and yes, there is even a sample Zen wedding ceremony that I am sure I will use some variation of, but the book DOES NOT explain the Zen culture. I guess that's why it shows up on a google search.

If you're planning a wedding, you're sure to find a reading here that fits perfectly with your ceremony. Even if you're not planning a wedding, you will enjoy reading this delightful book.

Pastor Monty Rainey

I bought this book looking for readings for my April wedding. I did end up using a passage from Buddha that I found in this book but overall I was unimpressed with the book. I had a really difficult time finding anything short enough to suit my purposes but not too short or too hokey. Specifically I was looking for something that two people could read together and I found it really difficult to find anything of that type. I ended up using something else from a different book of poetry. Many of the longer readings were very nice but too long or too complicated to ask someone to read at our wedding. This book also did not help either my husband or myself when writing our own vows. All in all I could have probably done without this book but I give it 3 stars because it is not a badly put together book - but perhaps just not what *I* was looking for.

We found several lovely and unique passages to include in all parts of our wedding - from the invitation to the ceremony and at the reception. There are a few I didn't like, but lots of unusual passages and several that I had never heard. Most everyone should find something.