Searching for potential wedding ceremony readings right now? First, think about what will mean the most to you as a couple. It’s always nice to choose something that resonates with your relationship or fits with your wedding style. An avant-garde wedding reading pulled from a favorite poem will flow beautifully into your modern vows. Did you see a movie on your first date? Check for meaningful lines from the film. Have a shared super-fandom? Tie in your favorite Harry Potter or Star Wars quotes, for example.
Whether your wedding is religious or non-religious, one of these passages just might be the beautiful addition to the ceremony you’ve been seeking. Read on for 15 wedding readings, from poems, literature, songs, film, religious works, and more.
1. “From Beginning to End” by Robert Fulghum
The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things 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, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this—is my husband, this—is my wife.
2. “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” by Louis De Bernieres
Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love,” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
3. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez
Madly in love after so many years … they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.
4. “Jasper Jones” by Craig Silvey
A photograph couldn’t ever tell its story. It’s like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace.
5. “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely; a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
6. “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.
7. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling
When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love.
8. “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Loving somebody isn’t perfection and good times and laughing and making love. Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it’s a gut punch. That’s why it’s a dangerous thing when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s. It’s sacred.
9. “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway
At night, there was the feeling that we had to come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
10. “The Mistress of Rome” by Kate Quinn
I love you. I love the way you rub the scar on the back of your hand when you’re nervous. I love the way you make a sword into a living part of your body. I love the way you burn your eyes into me, as if you’re seeing me fresh every time. I love the black streak in you that wants to kill the world, and the soft streak that is sorry afterward. I love the way you laugh, as if you’re surprised that you can laugh at all. I love the way you kiss my breath away. I love the way you breathe and speak and smile. I love the way you take the air out of my lungs when you hold me. I love the way you make a dance out of death. I love the confusion I see in your eyes when you realize you are happy. I love every muscle and bone in your body, every twist and bend in your soul.
Wedding Ceremony Readings From Poetry
Poetry is such a meaningful way to express your love. Try using one of these classic poems to inspire your vows or to include as a full reading. You could even have a loved one read the poem!
11. “Love Sonnet 17” by Pablo Neruda
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
12. “Untitled” by R.M. Drake
You will be the clouds
and I will be the sky.
you will be the ocean
and I will be the shore.
you will be the trees
and I will be the wind.
whatever we are, you and I
will always collide.
13. “Untitled” by R.M. Drake
but dear,
don’t be
afraid of
love, it’s
only magic.
14. “The Art of Marriage” by Wilferd A. Peterson
The little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating
gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding, and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual, and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
Wedding Ceremony Readings From Film and Television
Are the two of you movie buffs, or do you have a television series that you watch on repeat? These are a few of the best quotes to use from film and TV!
15. The Wedding Singer
I want to make you smile whenever you’re sad. Carry you around when your arthritis is bad. All I want to do is grow old with you. I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches. Build you a fire if the furnace breaks. Oh, it could be so nice, growing old with you. I’ll miss you, kiss you, give you my coat when you are cold. Need you, feed you, even let you hold the remote control. So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink. Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink. I could be the man who grows old with you. I want to grow old with you.
