Wedding reading
On love, from All About Love: New Visions
bell hooks
“On love, from All About Love: New Visions” by bell hooks is a prose reading read at a wedding ceremony. It takes about a minute and a half read aloud, usually by a guest reader. It is still in copyright, so the words are not reprinted here — the reader brings a printed copy.
Why the words are not printed here
Still in copyright — print the passage from All About Love: New Visions (William Morrow, 1999). Choose the paragraphs with the couple: it is thirteen chapters of argument rather than one set piece, and different chapters suit different ceremonies. Check the lines are actually in this book before you print them — the much-quoted "the moment we choose to love" passage is from her essay in Outlaw Culture, not from this one, and the two are run together constantly.
Pieces still in copyright are listed by title and author only — we name them and tell you where to get them, but we do not reproduce the words. Public-domain text is printed in your script in full.
What it is about
Love as a verb, argued rather than declared. Pick the paragraphs with the couple.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: love as something you do rather than feel · choosing to love · honesty · a modern secular reading · a couple who read.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “On love, from All About Love: New Visions” take to read aloud?
“On love, from All About Love: New Visions” takes about a minute and a half read aloud at a ceremony pace, which is slower than conversation — roughly 130 words a minute. That is the figure the run-sheet uses when it works out the timing for the whole service.
Who usually reads “On love, from All About Love: New Visions”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “On love, from All About Love: New Visions” runs about a minute and a half, which is a manageable amount to hand to a friend or family member. Give them a printed copy of their own, in a size they can read without their glasses, and tell them where to stand and how you will introduce them.
Can “On love, from All About Love: New Visions” be printed in a ceremony script?
Not by us. It is still in copyright, so we name it and point you at a copy rather than reprinting the words. Still in copyright — print the passage from All About Love: New Visions (William Morrow, 1999). Choose the paragraphs with the couple: it is thirteen chapters of argument rather than one set piece, and different chapters suit different ceremonies. Check the lines are actually in this book before you print them — the much-quoted "the moment we choose to love" passage is from her essay in Outlaw Culture, not from this one, and the two are run together constantly.
A reading is two minutes of the hour.
The rest is the welcome, the vows, the ring exchange, the pronouncement — and the timing that holds them together. Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole ceremony, written out, with this reading in its place.
Other readings that suit the same service
- All I Know About Lovea minute and a halfNeil Gaiman
- On Marriage, from The Propheta minute and a halfKahlil Gibran
- On Becoming Real, from The Velveteen Rabbit55 secondsMargery Williams
- from Obergefell v. Hodgesa minute and a halfJustice Anthony Kennedy
- from the Symposium — the speech of Aristophanestwo minutesPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett
- from Jane Eyre — ten years marrieda minute and a halfCharlotte Brontë