Also see the Ceremony: Poetry page for suggestions.

Lilith wrote:

Just wanted to share the rough draft of what will be on my Wedding Invitations for our ceremony this Halloween!...I have some fine-tuning to do with it still, I'm not crazy about my first line, but this will be close to what ends up on the invitation, if not exact :)

It's a whole new type of Autumn trouble,
As bonfires burn and cauldrons bubble,
Dead leaves dance on a chilling wind,
We'll dance and revel, old lives rescind.

Spiders skitter while skeletons leer,
Imps caper forth as the moon shines clear,
Butchered pumpkins flicker with light,
Witches laugh 'neath stars so bright.

Black cats yowl and zombies groan,
Goblins giggle and mummies moan,
The shroud to the Spirit World parts this night,
We call on those Spirits we'd like to invite!

Come hither, Come Forth, to the City of Sin!
This All Hallow's Eve, Beloved Friends and Kin,
To celebrate the Death of our Solitude,
A Defrightful Wedding, Fair Drink and Fine Food!

Oh, what a tangled web we'll weave,
For receiving our victims this All Hallow's Eve,
The Reaper will chant by light of the moon,
For joining the Souls of Nevins and Coon.

Friday, October 31, 2003 - 5:30pm
Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, Las Vegas Nevada
Dinner Reception to Follow

Here are a bunch of thematic quotations which might work as pull quotes in an invitation:

'Tis the night - the night
Of the grave's delight,
And the warlocks are at their play;
Ye think that without
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is they - it is they.
-- Arthur Cleveland Coxe

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
-- Emily Dickinson

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite,
All are on their rounds tonight;
In the wan moon's silver ray,
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
-- Joel Benton

Red serpents, fiery forms, and yelling hags,
Fit company for mad adventurers.
-- Philip Freneau

At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
Back to their quiet graves below.
-- Theodosia Garrison

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
-- Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.
-- Joseph Conrad

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names.
-- John Milton

Where there is no imagination there is no Horror.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle

If a man harbors any sort of fear, it makes him landlord to a ghost.
-- Lloyd Douglas

Men say that in this midnight hour,
The disembodiéd have power
To wander as it liketh them,
By wizard oak and fairy stream.
-- William Motherwell

How like a queen comes forth the lonely Moon
From the slow opening curtains of the clouds
Walking in beauty to her midnight throne!
-- George Croly

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about but few have seen.
-- François de la Rochefoucauld

Bring forth the raisins and the nuts
Tonight All-Hallows' Spectre struts
Along the moonlit way.
-- John Kendrick Bangs

You wouldn't believe
On All Hallow Eve
What lots of fun we can make,
With apples to bob,
And nuts on the hob,
And a ring-and-thimble cake.
-- Carolyn Wells

A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.
-- J.M. Barrie

Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away--
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
-- Virna Sheard

Nothing beats a haunted moonlit night on All Hallows Eve....
And on this fatal night, at this witching time, the starless sky laments black and unmoving. The somber hues of an ominous, dark forest are suddenly illuminated under the emerging face of the full moon.
-- Kim Elizabeth

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.
-- Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
-- Sir Francis Bacon, Essays [1625]