What does the "Reader" read?

stephk31

Good afternoon!
 
My fiance and I are both of the Lutheran faith and will have a Lutheran ceremony at our church. Having not been at a church wedding for some time, I am just now revisiting the typical ceremony style for our faith. Pretty clear cut for the most part, I am just confused about the person who is doing the reading besides the Pastor: exactly what do they read (I am assuming a scripture passage/lesson?) and is this person any secular person (bridesmaid?) Or does the Reader have to be someone in particular.
I would ask our Pastor, except that we do not currently have one (our church is in between, but hopefully we will have one in the next month, God willing).
Thank you very much in advance!!

AdeleDazeem

I believe the reader may be anyone you would like.  Do you have someone you'd like to honor that isn't a bridesmaid or groomsman? 

As a confirmed Lutheran, I'm embarassed to say that I've never been to a Lutheran wedding!  But, I've been to plenty of Sundays, Christmases and Easters in my life to say that other readings in those services are called lessons and are pulled from the Bible.  Only the Gospel is read by our pastor so two other people from the congregation (different each week) read the first and second lessons. 

Good luck!

em01092

Generally readers do not have to be anyone in particular, and are not limited to clergy.You don't have to have one though. Your officiant will read some scripture and that is plenty, if you want.  

My FI is Lutheran, so I have been to a few services (not weddings) and his pastor is marrying us. When we discussed readers, he was fine with a reader being anyone. He preferred readings be scripture-based, but he was open to other works as long as they echoed the teachings of the scripture. Of course every church is different as is every pastor, so yours could be totally different. 

Summer2011Bride

The reader(s) can be anyone you want, probably someone close to you that you want to honor who isn't in the WP. We had three readers: one of my co-workers, an uncle, and a very close family friend. We had two Scripture readings and a Shakespeare sonnet. Unless your Church has certain limitations on the readers/readings, you can really do whatever you want.

naomikb

I am also Lutheran, we had a Lutheran ceremony.  The readings don't really differ from any other Christian ceremony.

The readers are usually people special to you - a close friend who's not in your wedding party, sister in law, favourite aunt, godparent, etc.  If you don't want to pick someone or play favourites, you can have the pastor do the readings.

Most often you would have one old testament reading, one new testament reading.  If you are having communion then you also have a gospel reading (typically read by the pastor).  I would come up with 2-3 readings that you are happy with and take them to the pastor for approval and see if they have any restrictions/limits/guidelines.

Our church was flexible though, we had 2 new testament readings and added a non-biblical reading (Apache Wedding Prayer) as well.

stephk31

Thank you all for your replies! Actually, I was going to ask one of my bridesmaides to be a reader...she is a great public speaker, so I thought she would be good at it. It sounds like most people ask someone outside the wedding party though. Is that necessary?

naomikb

In Response to <a href="http://forums.weddings.com/Sites/Weddings/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_ceremony-ideas_what-does-the-reader-read?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:10Discussion:dfef798e-2ff3-4423-a6a6-a50ba10edd96Post:ec1b52cb-a45d-44f9-8620-b2ea6b735dfe">Re: What does the "Reader" read?</a>:
[QUOTE]Thank you all for your replies! Actually, I was going to ask one of my bridesmaides to be a reader...she is a great public speaker, so I thought she would be good at it. It sounds like most people ask someone outside the wedding party though. Is that necessary?
Posted by stephk31[/QUOTE]
We had chosen people outside of our wedding party as readers because there were a few people special to us we wanted to include - godmother, SIL.  But as long as your bridesmaid is fine with having 2 roles then I don't see any problem at all with it.