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.