Wedding ceremony readings
Non-religious wedding readings
A non-religious wedding reading is one that works in a ceremony with no religious framing at all — no scripture, no prayer, no blessing invoked. That leaves the love poetry, the prose passages about partnership, and a few pieces from children’s books that adults find they cannot get through dry-eyed.
These are the readings for a ceremony that is about the two people and the room, and nothing else. Nobody has to be uncomfortable, and nothing has to be quietly skipped.
Some of them come from religious traditions and still read as entirely secular out loud — which is the point of the tag. The list below is filtered on whether a passage works without faith, not on where it came from.
45 non-religious wedding readings, shortest first
- 10 secondsA Word to HusbandsOgden Nash · Four lines of marriage advice, and the shortest laugh available. Bring it printed.Reader brings a copy
- 15 secondsfrom Les Misérables — the supreme happinessVictor Hugo, tr. Isabel F. Hapgood · One sentence, fifteen seconds, and it holds the whole argument for marrying somebody. Worth knowing: "to love another person is to see the face of God" is from the 1985 musical rather than from Hugo, so it is not here.
- 15 secondsThe stars about the fair moonSappho, tr. Henry Thornton Wharton · Twenty-five words of Sappho, and every one of them is a compliment. The shortest thing on the shelf — made for a child reader, or a reader who wants one sentence and no more.
- 15 secondsfrom The House at Pooh Corner — "I just wanted to be sure of you"A. A. Milne · Four lines, and they hold what the vows are about to say at length. Worth knowing before somebody asks: "as soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen" and the "hundred minus one day" line are not in Milne — this is.
- 25 secondsfrom Song of the Open RoadWalt Whitman · Twenty-five seconds, and it ends on a question the couple answer with the vows.
- 25 secondsfrom a letter to Fanny Brawne, 13 October 1819John Keats · Keats wrote it to one person and never meant it to be heard, which is exactly how it reads. Twenty-five seconds, and it does not hedge once.
- 30 secondsHabitationMargaret Atwood · Nine lines, none of them cosy. For a couple who would rather have it said straight.Reader brings a copy
- 40 secondsThe Summer DayMary Oliver · Ends on "your one wild and precious life" — which is the line the couple are asking for.Reader brings a copy
- 40 secondsTouched by an AngelMaya Angelou · Angelou on love arriving and setting people free. Short, and it fills a room.Reader brings a copy
- 40 secondsLove Is Friendship Caught FireAttributed to Ann Landers · Often asked for, and nobody can show who wrote it. Read it — just do not credit it.Reader brings a copy
- 45 secondsA Red, Red RoseRobert Burns · Scots dialect. Give the reader the words in advance so it does not ambush them.
- 45 secondsi carry your heart with meE. E. Cummings · Short and much loved. The punctuation trips readers — rehearse it.Reader brings a copy
- 45 secondsWild GeeseMary Oliver · Opens by letting everyone off the hook, and ends on belonging. A room settles under it.Reader brings a copy
- 45 secondsHe’s Not PerfectAuthor unknown — widely misattributed to Bob Marley · Everyone has seen it with Bob Marley’s name on it. He did not write it — say so, or say nothing.Reader brings a copy
- 50 secondsSonnet 130William Shakespeare · Thirteen lines of insults, then a last couplet that beats every compliment in the book. It teases the sonnets sitting next to it.
- 50 secondsSonnet XVII — "I do not love you as if you were salt-rose"Pablo Neruda · Ask which translation. They are not interchangeable.Reader brings a copy
- 55 secondsSonnet 18William Shakespeare · "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Everyone half-knows it, which is a help.
- 55 secondsOn Becoming Real, from The Velveteen RabbitMargery Williams · Good for a child reader, and for a couple who have already been through something.
- a minute and a halfSonnet 116William Shakespeare · "Let me not to the marriage of true minds." Warn your reader: the last two lines need slowing down.
- a minute and a halfSonnet 75Edmund Spenser · "One day I wrote her name upon the strand." She gets the better of him halfway through.
- a minute and a halfOn marriage, from The Devil's Dictionary — five definitionsAmbrose Bierce · This one bites — mordant, not gently teasing, and only for a couple with a dry, self-aware sense of humour. Read all five before you offer it: the entry on marriage makes an 1881 joke about masters and slaves.
- a minute and a halfUnionRobert Fulghum · The best-known modern wedding reading. Your reader brings the book.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfOn love, from Letters to a Young PoetRainer Maria Rilke · The "two solitudes" passage. Which translation matters a great deal here.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfOn love, from All About Love: New Visionsbell hooks · Love as a verb, argued rather than declared. Pick the paragraphs with the couple.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfThe Art of a Good MarriageWilferd Arlan Peterson · The classic — and it usually arrives with the wrong name on it. Peterson wrote it.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfMarry Your Best FriendN’tima Preusser · A modern favorite that almost always arrives uncredited. Say her name when you read it.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfA Lovely Love StoryEdward Monkton · The dinosaur one. A minute long, and about as easy as a reading gets.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfThe Impressive Clergyman’s speech — "Mawage"William Goldman, for the 1987 film of The Princess Bride · Everyone asks. It is film dialogue, not the novel — nod to it in your own words instead.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halffrom Obergefell v. HodgesJustice Anthony Kennedy · The closing paragraph of the 2015 marriage decision, ending on the line the whole country quoted. It carries further from the officiant than from a guest reader.
- a minute and a halfLove Is a Temporary MadnessLouis de Bernières · The unsentimental one, about what is left after the fireworks.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfThe Road Not TakenRobert Frost · The last three lines are why anybody asks for it. Frost is looking back at a choice from years down the road, which is the view a wedding is borrowing.
- a minute and a halfOn Marriage, from The ProphetKahlil Gibran · The Prophet entered the public domain, so this one we can print in full.
- a minute and a halffrom Jane Eyre — ten years marriedCharlotte Brontë · Jane at the end of the book, describing the marriage from inside it. The rare reading that is about being married rather than about getting married.
- a minute and a halffrom Extracts from Adam's Diary — selected entriesMark Twain · Adam is baffled by Eve for four entries and then says the truest thing in the book. Tell the reader to slow right down for the last one.
- a minute and a halfThe Country of MarriageWendell Berry · For a couple who want something with more weight than the standards.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfAll I Know About LoveNeil Gaiman · Written for a friend’s wedding in 2017, and published by the author himself.Reader brings a copy
- a minute and a halfOh, the Places You'll Go!Dr. Seuss · Read from the book itself, not a printout — the rights here are actively enforced.Reader brings a copy
- two minutesfrom the Symposium — the speech of AristophanesPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett · Where "your other half" comes from, in the passage that put it there. Nearly two minutes of one unbroken sentence-chain — give the reader the page a week early.
- two minutesThe Owl and the Pussy-catEdward Lear · Nonsense verse the whole room half-remembers, and the one piece here nobody has ever objected to. Made for a child reader.
- two minutesfrom The Importance of Being Earnest, Act IOscar Wilde · Dialogue, so it wants two readers or one who can mark the switch. Algernon has nothing kind to say about marriage, including a line on the Divorce Court — that is the joke, but know it is coming.
- two minutesYes, I'll Marry You, My DearPam Ayres · A crowd-pleaser at British weddings. Bring a properly sourced copy — the versions online differ.Reader brings a copy
- 3 minutesHow Falling in Love Is Like Owning a DogTaylor Mali · The dog one. Several minutes long, and it earns them — but your reader needs to rehearse it.Reader brings a copy
- 4 minutesA recorded songThe family’s choice · For anything modern. Add the title, and the run-sheet gives it a cue and a slot.Played, not printed
- 4 minutesA live performanceA family member or musician · Someone performing live. Plan for the possibility they cannot get through it.Played, not printed
- 8 minutesMusic as people arriveThe venue · You say nothing. It is on the run-sheet so the clock tells the truth.Played, not printed
Questions
Non-religious wedding readings: what is usually chosen?
A non-religious wedding reading is one that works in a ceremony with no religious framing at all — no scripture, no prayer, no blessing invoked. That leaves the love poetry, the prose passages about partnership, and a few pieces from children’s books that adults find they cannot get through dry-eyed.
Which of these can be printed in the script?
20 of the 45 readings on this page carry their full text on their own page, so they can go straight into a ceremony script or an order of service. 25 are still in copyright: we name them with their author and point you at a copy rather than reprinting the words.
Texts last checked .
The reading is two minutes. The ceremony is the rest of it.
Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole thing written out — the welcome, their story, the vows, the ring exchange, the pronouncement — with your chosen readings already in place and the timing worked out around them.
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