Wedding reading
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare is a poem read at a wedding ceremony. It takes about 55 seconds read aloud, usually by a guest reader. It is in the public domain, so the full text is printed on this page and goes straight into a ceremony script.
The full text
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.
What it is about
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Everyone half-knows it, which is a help.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: beauty · summer · permanence · an outdoor wedding · well known.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “Sonnet 18” take to read aloud?
“Sonnet 18” takes about 55 seconds 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 “Sonnet 18”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “Sonnet 18” runs about 55 seconds, 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 “Sonnet 18” be printed in a ceremony script?
Yes. It is in the public domain, so the full text is on this page and can be printed in a script or an order of service.
Where this text was checked
Checked word for word against a full-text edition that is itself the authority — a Project Gutenberg or Wikisource transcription, a publisher’s own edition, or the issuing body’s page.
Checked
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
- The Road Not Takena minute and a halfRobert Frost
- Sonnet 4355 secondsElizabeth Barrett Browning
- from Song of the Open Road25 secondsWalt Whitman
- The stars about the fair moon15 secondsSappho, tr. Henry Thornton Wharton
- Song of Solomon 2:10–1340 secondsKing James Bible
- Sonnet 116a minute and a halfWilliam Shakespeare