Wedding ceremony readings
Poems for a wedding ceremony
The wedding poems that are out of copyright, and therefore printable in a ceremony script, are mostly Elizabethan and Victorian: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose”, Anne Bradstreet, Spenser’s Sonnet 75, Whitman. Each takes between about thirty seconds and two minutes read aloud.
A poem is the part of the ceremony a guest usually reads, which makes length the thing to watch. Two minutes is a long time at the front of a room for somebody who did not expect to be nervous.
Where a poem is still in copyright — most twentieth-century work — it is listed by title and author with a note on where to get it, and the reader brings their own printed copy. We do not reproduce those words, not even partially.
16 poems for a wedding ceremony, 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
- 25 secondsfrom Song of the Open RoadWalt Whitman · Twenty-five seconds, and it ends on a question the couple answer with the vows.
- 30 secondsA BirthdayChristina Rossetti · Pure gladness, and over in half a minute.
- 45 secondsA Red, Red RoseRobert Burns · Scots dialect. Give the reader the words in advance so it does not ambush them.
- 45 secondsTo My Dear and Loving HusbandAnne Bradstreet · Written in 1670 and still the plainest statement of the thing.
- 45 secondsi carry your heart with meE. E. Cummings · Short and much loved. The punctuation trips readers — rehearse it.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 secondsSonnet 43Elizabeth Barrett Browning · "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." The most requested after Sonnet 116.
- 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 halfThe Country of MarriageWendell Berry · For a couple who want something with more weight than the standards.Reader brings a copy
- 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 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
Questions
Poems for a wedding ceremony: what is usually chosen?
The wedding poems that are out of copyright, and therefore printable in a ceremony script, are mostly Elizabethan and Victorian: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose”, Anne Bradstreet, Spenser’s Sonnet 75, Whitman. Each takes between about thirty seconds and two minutes read aloud.
Which of these can be printed in the script?
10 of the 16 readings on this page are public domain, so their full text is printed on this site and can go into a ceremony script or an order of service. The rest are named with their author and a note on where to get a copy — we do not reproduce text that is still in copyright.
Texts last checked 2026-07-25.
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.