I’ll let you in on a secret.
Wedding readings are one of the main reasons that I first decided that I want to become a celebrant.
I was lucky enough to be invited to several weddings over the course of one summer, and whilst each of them was wonderful, special and unique in their own ways, what struck a chord with me in each of them was that the readings each couple had chosen were pretty…uninspired.
If you choose to include readings in your wedding, they can be a fantastic way to personalise the ceremony. Whether you choose a reading that honours your spiritual beliefs or cultural heritage, or one that just reminds you of your partner and your relationship, they are an ideal way to make your wedding feel unique and personal to you.
If you’ve decided to include readings as part of your wedding ceremony, don’t be tempted to google search ‘wedding readings’ and just pick the first poem that comes up.
You can browse through what the internet recommends, but I’ve been there and done that, and you’ll find a lot of the same quotes over and over again.
Boring!
In this post, I’m going to talk you through how I suggest that my couples decide on a wedding reading, and share some of my own, alternative suggestions. I also cover some of the other key questions you might have about wedding readings, so that you feel confident in your choices.
What is a Reading at a Wedding?
A reading at a wedding involves your celebrant, one of your guests, or even you or your partner reading something to the rest of your guests. A lot of couple choose poems as their wedding readings, but you might also have an excerpt from a book, a passage from a religious text, a film quote, or song lyrics.
Readings break up the wedding ceremony by giving someone else a role in the proceedings and providing the couple with a chance to step back from standing up at the front. They can also be a wonderful way to make your ceremony feel more personal and share something meaningful with your guests.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that you do not have to have readings as part of your wedding ceremony. If you and your partner can’t decide on anything that feels right, or don’t have anyone in mind to read for you, it is absolutely fine to skip the readings altogether, and customise your ceremony in a different way.
Who Does the Reading at a Wedding?
As I said before, the person who reads your chosen passage/quote/poem is really up to you. Plenty of couples like to get one of their wedding party involved in the ceremony by asking them to do a reading, or give the opportunity to one of their family members. This can be a brilliant way to include the people who matter most to you in the proceedings.
You might also choose a reading for your celebrant to include in their wedding ceremony script, instead of asking someone to get up and come and stand at the front to read. This is a good option if you don’t have any guests who are particularly keen on public speaking, or you’re planning a very small, intimate wedding.
You can choose whoever you like to do a reading at your wedding. But you might want to think about whether they’re cut out for public speaking. It would be a shame for your favourite love poem to be butchered on your wedding day because your bridesmaid got nervous!
How to Choose a Wedding Reading
My advice here about how to choose a wedding is quite simple.
Go with what feels right for you.
If you do some research and you find a reading that you both love, include it.
If you already know that you want an passage from one of your favourite childhood books, however weird it is, then that’s perfect.
If there’s a song or a quote that has played an important part in your relationship, then you’ve got an ideal reading right there.
You wedding reading should mean something to you both. It should be something that you look back on with even fonder memories after hearing it at your wedding.
If you want, it can give your guests an insight into your love story. Or it can just share something important to the two of you.
When you’re choosing a wedding reading, the best piece of advice is NOT to just pick one that you think sounds ‘appropriate’ for a wedding, or something that feels ‘good enough’.
You’ve got millions of options to choose from. Make the most of them!
9 Alternative Wedding Readings
Below, you’ll fine nine examples that I picked out as strong contenders for a wedding reading. Some of them are well known, whilst others come from my collection of favourite poems that I personally would love to include in my wedding!
Give them a read, if you’re looking for ideas.
Dust
by Harry Baker
“I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you.”
I’ve actually seen Harry Baker perform this poem in person several times at Greenbelt Festival, and he’s a poet I think deserves more recognition, so he’s top of this list. If you’re looking for something that feels down-to-earth by still romantic and meaningful, it’s a perfect option.
Its not the flowers, its the weeding in the mud with you
It’s not the champagne it’s that cuppa in that favourite mug you use
It’s knowing anything I eat will include some for you
Because you’re not hungry but might just have a couple spoons
It’s not the dreaming, it’s the waking up with you,
I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you
Its knowing if it came to it and I had option to
I would not change a single thing of what I’ve got with you
For us love isn’t in the air, that’s just where we found it
All this is built upon what we have done to ground it
It’s not the spark when we first met
It is the lifetime built around it
It’s by small amounts, that mounds and mounds like mountains
I need not justify or adjust of fear that I’m judged by you
Such is the glorious consistency of loving you
My hearts not skipped a beat
It just constantly thuds for you
Such is the everyday magnificence of loving you
It’s not something we fell into, so much as stumbled through
It’s the spectacular normality of loving you
It’s not the dreaming
It’s the waking up with you
I want to be here long enough to gather dust with you.
The Wedding Speech From ‘Fleabag’
By Phoebe Waller-Bridge
“…love isn’t something that weak people do.”
I think that it’s probably the “I love you”, “It’ll pass” speech that most people think of when they consider quotes from Fleabag. But if you want a wedding reading from contemporary media, you can’t go wrong with this wonderful quote from the final episode of the series.
Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do.
It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there. So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own. I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right, it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.
I carry your heart in my heart
“you are whatever a moon has always meant / and whatever a sun will always sing is you”
This suggestion is probably the most conventional reading for a wedding in this blog post. But e. e. cummings is a pretty experimental poet, so if you and your partner want something that feels classic but alternative, I think it’s a really great choice.
Just make sure that whoever is doing the reading gets a lot of practice, as it’s not the easiest poem to perfom!
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 the 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)
The Bridesmaid’s Speech
by Kate J Baer
“How / lucky we are to know a love like this.”
I really don’t know why this isn’t chosen as a wedding reading more often. It’s a beautiful ode to friendship and love whilst also being wedding themed, and is a perfect choice if you have one of your oldest friend’s doing the reading.
I have known her all her life.
And by that I mean I’ve seen her
in the impossible light of girlhood.
The spaces in between — the car
on the way to the birthday dinner,
the moment before the photograph.
I have stood outside the bathroom stall,
held tight while her shoulders shook
with sorrow. I’ve watched joy arrive,
midnight and unexpected, repeated
stories until they were my own. It’s
true there is a cost to this devotion —
but I’ll let you in on a little secret:
there is very little women choose
to keep from one another. How
lucky are we to know a love like this.
i climb into my bathtub the same way i fell in love with you
“…I’ll keep loving you until my skin is wrinkled.”
I talk about how long a wedding reading should be later in this post, and this is great if you just want something short and sweet. It’s definitely not one that you’ll find on conventional lists of reading recommendations, making it ideal if you and your partner want something unique.
i climb into my bathtub the same way i fell in love with you
dipping my toes in and then all at once
which is to say i know nothing of slowness
which is to say it doesn’t feel right until i’m fully submerged – ever!
i climb into my bathtub the same way i’ll keep loving you
until my skin is wrinkled
After the Lunch
By Wendy Cope
“The head does its best but the heart is the boss.”
Wendy Cope is a poet who is probably best known for ‘The Orange’ which contains the wonderful line ‘I love you/ I’m glad I exist’. Which is also a lovely choice for a wedding reading.
However, another poem of hers that I love is this one, which I think perfectly captures the feeling of falling in love.
On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.
On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. You’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?
On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
The head does its best but the heart is the boss.
I admit it before I am halfway across.
What I Didn’t Know Before
by Ada Limón
“What was between / us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed / over.”
Another poem that is a great wedding reading if you want to capture the feeling of falling in love, from another perspective. It won’t feel relevant to every couple, but if it does resonate then it’s a wonderful alternative choice.
What I didn’t know before
was how horses simply give birth to other
horses. Not a baby by any means, not
a creature of liminal spaces, but already
a four-legged beast hellbent on walking,
scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way
to another horse and then suddenly there are
two horses, just like that. That’s how I loved you.
You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying
a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two
computers swinging in it unwieldily at your
side. I remember we broke into laughter
when we saw each other. What was between
us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed
over. It came out fully formed, ready to run.
I KNEW I LOVED YOU WHEN YOU SHOWED ME YOUR MINECRAFT WORLD
“I watched the back of your head / suddenly overcome by the feeling of knowing / I was beyond what could be recovered from.”
This might be the most unconventional suggestion on this whole list of wedding readings, so I am expecting that it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Hera Lindsey Bird is a modern poet who writes in a very unique way, so if you’re after a poem that is really quirky, or unconventionally romantic, this might be for you!
It wasn’t the upside-down crosses in your mansion
or even the lone, giant cigarette burning in the sky.
You walked me around and I watched the back of your head
suddenly overcome by the feeling of knowing
I was beyond what could be recovered from
the dark pixels of the forest vibrating in a virtual wind
distant panpipe music blowing through your speakers
It’s not that I didn’t love you before
it is just – there are some things which cannot be said
and some feelings which, if articulated too early
and forced towards the surface go blind
& it’s better to hold them off, or wait them out
& never say their name aloud until the pressure of what is unspoken
becomes impossible to hold back
and articulates itself within the body
like mice, running wild through a field of burning grass.
The train disappears underground and comes back up again
The cigarette distributes its vague cancers into the sky
Outside the sky is firing navy shadows like a T-shirt gun
And spring is on the wind like wifi
When I was miserable you came and showed me card tricks
When the moon was full we pissed into the bushes like animals
I watch you sleep, like a security guard looking at a famous painting
with a searchlight
walk me to the graveyard on the edge of your map
nothing must hurt you, not even me.
For Love In a Time of Conflict
“When even the silence has become raw and torn, / May you hear again an echo of your first music.”
I was introduced to John O’Donohue as part of my celebrant training with the ICPC, and really wanted to include one of his blessings in this list. This piece of writing is a gentle reminder that marriage won’t always be smooth sailing, and would be a perfect reading for an older friend or family member to read at a wedding.
When the gentleness between you hardens
And you fall out of your belonging with each other,
May the depths you have reached hold you still.
When no true word can be said, or heard,
And you mirror each other in the script of hurt,
When even the silence has become raw and torn,
May you hear again an echo of your first music.
When the weave of affection starts to unravel
And anger begins to sear the ground between you,
Before this weather of grief invites
The black seed of bitterness to find root,
May your souls come to kiss.
Now is the time for one of you to be gracious,
To allow a kindness beyond thought and hurt,
Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste
Until this winter pilgrimage leads you
Towards the gateway to spring.
How Long Should a Wedding Reading Be?
When choosing a wedding reading, length is an important feature to consider. But how long your reading is really depends on the length of your ceremony, which might be dictated by how long you’ve hired the venue for.
An accomplished speaker or performer can keep an audience captivate for hours, but at a wedding, you probably only want your readings to take a few minutes. A short to medium length poem, or a page or so of a book, is ideal.
How to Introduce a Reading at a Wedding
The introduction to a reading at a wedding is almost as important as the reading itself. It allows your guests to understand why you have chosen it, and can share more of your story as part of your ceremony.
You, your partner, or your wedding celebrant might want to write the introduction for your readings for someone else to read. But if you’re asking a friend or family member to create an introduction for the reading as well, make sure that you give them lots of context, and offer to proof read it before your big day!
Planning a Wedding?
If you’re in the process of planning a wedding, choosing a reading or two for your ceremony is probably on your list of things to do.
Choosing a celebrant to conduct your ceremony might also be on there.
If you’re looking for a wedding celebrant who can help you create a ceremony that is creative, fun, meaningful and unique to you and your partner, you’re in the right place. I can help you tailor your ceremony so that every moment feels authentic to you both, from the readings to the music, vows and even things like the choreography.
Find out more about what I offer as a wedding celebrant, or get in touch to have a no-pressure chat about what you’re looking for.
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