Top 20 Wedding Readings That Add Meaning, Emotion, and Personal Touch

A reading at your wedding is a simple way to make the service more personal. Whether it’s heartfelt, hilarious, or emotional, it’s a memory that will last for you and your guests. In the UK readings are placed after the welcome and before the vows in wedding order of serivce.

What are Wedding Readings?

Wedding readings are special words or passages read aloud from scriptures, poems, quotes from books, song lyrics or even something personal written by the couple themselves or friends and families. These readings can add personal meaning and personality to the ceremony and can reflect the couple’s love story, values or a hope to their beautiful future.

In this wedding guide, you will explore what wedding readings are, their importance and some popular and meaningful examples suitable for all wedding types and themes.

Who does Wedding Readings?

Anyone you choose who feels right to you can do a reading for your wedding. There are no strict rules about who can deliver a wedding reading. It can be your friend, your family member or anyone including your little nephews and niece. As long as the person is comfortable speaking in front of the guests and excited to take part, they can be a great choice!

The reader doesn’t need to be extremely close to you, but they have to know the couple at least a little. This helps the reading feel more genuine and meaningful, especially if they have chosen the reading themselves.

Pro Tip: It’s always a good idea to have a backup reader in case the first choice can’t make it on the day.

How Long Should a Wedding Reading Be?

Wedding readings should be kept in between 1 and 3 minutes ideally, but if it’s long it should not extend more than 5 minutes. It should be short, meaningful and to the point to help the flow of the ceremony and keeping the guests engaged.

If the reading is too long, guests will start to lose focus especially if the ceremonies are outdoor in summer.

Pro Tip: Reader should practice out loud before the big day, as reading silently is very different from speaking in front of the crowd. Practicing aloud helps with confidence, pace and pronunciation.

How Many Wedding Readings Should You Include?

Typically, couples choose to include one to three readings, depending on the type of wedding ceremony and personal preferences. Religious ceremonies often have two readings, with the officiant sometimes adding one or two more. In civil ceremonies one or two readings are common, keeping it personal and simple.

Pro Tip: Spread out your readings during the ceremony to keep things flowing and guests engaged.

Top 20 Wedding Readings

1. 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (New Testament)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

2. Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

3. “How Do I Love Thee?” (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

4. “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

5. “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

6. “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 having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice,
but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
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

7. “Love” by Roy Croft (often attributed to Mary Carolyn Davies)

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me that you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you because you are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple;
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach, but a song.

I love you
Because you have done more than any creed
Could have done to make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it by being yourself.
Perhaps that is what being a friend means, after all.

8. “A Vow” by Wendy Cope

I cannot promise never to be angry;
I cannot promise always to be kind.
You know what you are taking on, my darling —
It’s only at the start that love is blind.

And yet I’m still the one you want to be with,
And you’re the one for me — of that I’m sure.
You are my closest friend, my favourite person,
The lover and the home I’ve waited for.

I cannot promise that I will deserve you
From this day on, I hope to pass that test.
I love you, and I want to make you happy.
I promise I will do my very best.

9. “Fidelity” by D.H. Lawrence

Man and woman are like the earth, that brings forth flowers in summer,
and love, but underneath is rock.
Older than flowers, older than ferns,
older than foraminiferae,
older than plasm altogether is the soul underneath.

And when, throughout all the wild chaos of love
slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, once-more-molten rocks
of two human hearts, two ancient rocks,
a man’s heart and a woman’s,
that is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust,
the sapphire of fidelity.

The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love.

10. From Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

\“The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds.
Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity.
In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.
Love participates of the soul itself.
It is of the same nature.
Like it, it is the divine spark;
like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable.
It is a point of fire which exists within us,
which is immortal and infinite,
which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish.
We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones,
and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven.”

11. “The One” by Cheryl Barclay

When the one whose hand you’re holding
Is the one who holds your heart,
When the one whose eyes you gaze into
Gives your hopes and dreams their start,
When the one you think of first and last
Is the one who holds you tight,
And the things you plan together
Make the whole world seem just right,
When the one whom you believe in
Puts their faith and trust in you,
You’ve found the one and only love
You’ll share your whole life through.

12. “A Marriage” by Mark Twain

A marriage makes of two fractional lives a whole;
It gives to two purposeless lives a work,
And doubles the strength of each to perform it.
It gives to two questioning natures a reason for living,
And something to live for.
It will give a new gladness to the sunshine,
A new fragrance to the flowers,
A new beauty to the earth,
And a new mystery to life.

13. “I’ll Be There for You” by Louise Cuddon

I’ll be there, my darling, through thick and through thin
When your mind’s in a mess and your head’s in a spin
When your plane’s been delayed and you’ve missed the last train
When life is just threatening to drive you insane
When your thrilling whodunit has lost its last page
When somebody tells you you’re looking your age
When your coffee’s too cool, and your wine is too warm
When the forecast said, “Fine,” but you’re out in a storm

When your quick break hotel turns into a slum
And your holiday photos show only your thumb

When you park for five minutes in a resident’s bay
And return to discover you’ve been towed away
When the jeans that you bought in hope or in haste
Just stick on your hips and don’t reach round your waist

When the food you most like brings you out in red rashes
When your best opening gambit just crashes and burns

I’ll be there for you, my love, through laughter and tears
Through pain and sorrow, joy and fears
Because you matter to me more than words can say
And I’ll be there beside you, come what may.

14. “I Wanna Be Yours” by John Cooper Clarke

“I wanna be your vacuum cleaner…”

I wanna be yours,
Let me be your vacuum cleaner,
Breathing in your dust,
Let me be your Ford Cortina,
I will never rust.

I wanna be yours,
Let me be your raincoat,
For those frequent rainy days.
I wanna be yours,
Let me be the electric meter,
I will not run out or run away.

15. “He’s Not Perfect” by Bob Marley

He’s not perfect,
You aren’t either.
And the two of you will never be perfect,
But if he can make you laugh
When you feel like crying,
If he can hold your hand
Through the hard times,
If he can be your rock, your comfort,
Then love him,
And be thankful for the love you share.

16. “We’re All a Little Weird” by Dr. Seuss

We’re all a little weird,
And life’s a little weird,
And when we find someone
Whose weirdness is compatible with ours,
We join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—
And call it love.

17. “Apache Wedding Blessing”

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

18. “I Carry Your Heart With Me” by E.E. Cummings

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

I fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).

19. “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett

One of the strange things about living in the world
is that all life is growth.
People are always trying to grow.
Even when it seems most like dying,
something inside them is growing.

20. “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” by Louis de Bernières

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 intertwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.