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.
Where it comes from
Sonnet 18 belongs to the sequence Thomas Thorpe first printed in 1609, which the Folger’s page on the Sonnets describes as the edition generally considered authoritative. The text follows Edward Bliss Reed’s Yale Shakespeare edition of the Sonnets, published in 1923 by Yale University Press.
What it says
The poet asks whether he should compare the person he loves to a summer day, then decides the comparison is unfair to them. Summer is too short, too hot, sometimes cloudy, and its beauty always fades in the end. The beloved’s summer will not fade, because it has been written into these lines, and death cannot claim someone who lives on in verse. The last two lines make the promise concrete: as long as people breathe and can read, this poem lives, and it keeps the beloved alive with it. At a wedding it becomes a promise that the love being celebrated will be remembered.
"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.
Who it suits
Summer weddings, garden and outdoor ceremonies, and couples who want a famous poem that most guests will recognize from the first line. It suits a couple who love words and books, since the poem’s real subject is the power of writing to keep something alive. It is gentler and more celebratory than Sonnet 116, which argues; this one praises. In a winter ceremony the summer imagery can feel out of place.
Where it goes in the ceremony
A natural opening reading, right after the welcome, or the reading just before the vows. A friend or sibling usually reads it. At under a minute it pairs well with a second reading, scripture or prose, and it can follow a piece about marriage itself to add a note of praise.
Reading it aloud
The text on this page is 114 words. At a ceremony pace of about 130 words a minute, which is slower than conversation, that comes to about 55 seconds of reading.
- Ask the opening question as a real question, with a lift at the end. The rest of the poem is the answer.
- The middle eight lines list summer’s faults. Keep them moving; the turn comes at “But thy eternal summer shall not fade”.
- Most guests will know the first line and some will mouth it. Do not rush to get ahead of them; a steady pace lets the room settle in.
- End on “gives life to thee” and hold the silence for a beat before looking up.
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
- Sonnet 116a minute and a halfThe other Shakespeare sonnet couples ask for, about constancy
- Sonnet 75a minute and a halfAnother sonnet that promises verse will outlast death
- Song of Solomon 2:10–1340 secondsA summer scene from scripture for an outdoor ceremony
- The Road Not Takena minute and a halfRobert Frost
- Sonnet 43a minute and a halfElizabeth Barrett Browning
- from Song of the Open Road25 secondsWalt Whitman