Wedding reading
Marry Your Best Friend
N’tima Preusser
“Marry Your Best Friend” by N’tima Preusser 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
It circulates uncredited or wrongly attributed almost everywhere it appears. N’tima Preusser wrote it, and she is a working writer who can be asked — but we could not trace where it was first published, so there is no properly sourced copy to send you to. Credit her by name at the front, pick one wording and stay with it, and expect the versions online to differ from each other.
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
A modern favourite that almost always arrives uncredited. Say her name when you read it.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: marry your best friend · the ordinary days · a modern favourite · usually arrives uncredited · a young couple.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “Marry Your Best Friend” take to read aloud?
“Marry Your Best Friend” 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 “Marry Your Best Friend”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “Marry Your Best Friend” 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 “Marry Your Best Friend” 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. It circulates uncredited or wrongly attributed almost everywhere it appears. N’tima Preusser wrote it, and she is a working writer who can be asked — but we could not trace where it was first published, so there is no properly sourced copy to send you to. Credit her by name at the front, pick one wording and stay with it, and expect the versions online to differ from each other.
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
- He’s Not Perfect45 secondsAuthor unknown — widely misattributed to Bob Marley
- Oh, the Places You'll Go!a minute and a halfDr. Seuss
- 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