Hear My Soul Speak - Shakespeare For Weddings

Every now and then you get to hear Shakespeare recited at a wedding. Unforunately it's almost always Sonnet 116, Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Don't get me wrong, it's a great sonnet, certainly appropriate, and if you don't immerse yourself in this stuff for a living, it might be a pleasant change of pace. Or, it could be the twentieth time you've heard it that week and you're left thinking, "There are other sonnets, you know!" I'm still waiting for the day somebody pulls off Sonnet 130.

At one particular wedding I remember thinking, wait, maybe they don't know. Maybe everybody keeps going back to the same well because they heard it at somebody else's wedding. Or it's listed as one of the possible readings that the wedding planner shows them.

I'd always wanted to write a book. Why not a Shakespeare for Weddings book? Compile one source of all the best Shakespeare quotes for all parts of the wedding - the invitations, the father of the bride speech, the toasts, etc... Of course, plenty of other sonnets to choose from.

Oh and for the record, I chose Sonnet 17 for mine. I thought about reciting it at the reception, on a microphone in front of everybody. But I chickened out and whisperered in my bride's ear during our first dance.