Literary and classic wedding readings
Updated August 2026
The classic poems, printed complete, each traced back to the edition it first appeared in. These are the readings people half-remember from other weddings, and there is a reason they keep being chosen: they were built to be spoken, and they hold up in a room full of people who are not concentrating.
Older poems ask more of a reader than modern ones do. Every text here comes with the specific hazard attached to it: the word that is pronounced differently than it looks, the line that has to run on rather than stop, the repetition that turns into a chant if you read it level.
The poems
Read each one aloud before you decide. A poem that looks perfect on a screen can be unsayable, and you will know within four lines which of these belongs to your reader’s voice.
Sonnet 116
about 50 secondsThe default literary reading at English-speaking weddings, and still the best argument for constancy anybody has written. Suits a confident reader; the syntax is dense and unforgiving of a skim.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Where this text comes from
William Shakespeare, Shake-speares Sonnets, first published 1609. No copyright has attached to it for centuries; it is free for anyone to print or perform.
Checked against Project Gutenberg: Shakespeare’s Sonnets, described there as "a collection of poems published in 1609".
Reading it aloud
Read the sense, not the line endings. The first two lines are one thought and the second runs on into the third; a reader who stops at every line break turns an argument into a list. Mark the real stops in pencil before the day.
The last two lines are the reader signing their own name to the claim. Slow down, look up, and say them to the couple rather than to the page.
How do I love thee?
about 50 secondsWarm where Sonnet 116 is stern, and the most quoted love poem in the language. Suits a reader who is comfortable with feeling, and a couple who wants the ceremony to be openly tender.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Where this text comes from
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, first published 1850. Long before the 1930 line, so US copyright expired long ago and the sonnet is free to reprint.
Checked against Project Gutenberg: Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Reading it aloud
Eight sentences begin "I love thee", which is a gift and a trap. Vary where you put the weight: on "depth" in one, on "quiet" in the next, on "freely" after that. Identical stress on every repetition flattens the poem into a chant.
Note that the poem does mention God once, in the final line. If the couple has asked for a ceremony with no religious language at all, say so now rather than on the day.
A Red, Red Rose
about 40 secondsA song before it was a poem, and it still moves like one. Wonderful read by a Scottish relative; slightly perilous otherwise, because the dialect has to sound natural or it sounds like a costume.
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!
Where this text comes from
Robert Burns, Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, first published 1794. No copyright survives; the song has been freely reprinted and sung for over two centuries.
Checked against Project Gutenberg: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, where the song is placed under the year 1794.
Reading it aloud
Decide in advance whether the reader is doing the Scots or not. Half-doing it is the only bad answer. A reader who says "love" and "all" plainly, in their own accent, sounds sincere; a reader attempting "luve" and "a’" without the ear for it sounds like a party trick.
The last stanza is a farewell, which surprises people at a wedding. Read it as a promise to return rather than a goodbye, and it lands exactly right.
A Birthday
about 40 secondsPure, uncomplicated joy: no doubt in it anywhere. The right choice when the ceremony has been solemn and the room needs to be allowed to feel happy.
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Where this text comes from
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and Other Poems, first published 1862. Long before the 1930 line, so US copyright expired long ago and the poem is free to reprint.
Checked against Project Gutenberg: Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress, and Other Poems, which states that "‘Goblin Market and other Poems’ was first published in 1862".
Reading it aloud
Four "my heart is like" comparisons open the poem and they are meant to pile up, each one a little brighter than the last. Build through them rather than reading them level, and the eighth line arrives as a release.
Two words trip readers every time: "vair" rhymes with "hair", and "fleurs-de-lys" ends on a soft "lee". Write both phonetically on the reader’s card and the poem sails.
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
about 1 minuteThe funny one that is genuinely about a wedding: a proposal, a ring, a marriage, and dancing. Perfect for a child reader, a family with small kids in the seats, or a ceremony that wants one deliberately light moment.
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are, you are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married; too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Where this text comes from
Edward Lear, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets, first published 1871. Well before the 1930 line, so US copyright expired long ago and the poem is free to reprint.
Checked against Internet Archive: Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets, 1871.
Reading it aloud
Let it be silly. The internal rhymes — "willing" and "shilling", "mince" and "quince" — are doing the work, so lean into them rather than reading the poem straight and hoping the room notices.
If a child is reading, rehearse once with them and agree a signal for "start again", so a stumble becomes part of the fun instead of a small disaster. And nobody knows what a runcible spoon is; that is the joke, and it needs no explaining.
Choosing and reading well
Reading old poetry so it sounds like speech
The single biggest improvement available to any reader is to stop at the punctuation instead of at the line breaks. A sonnet is made of sentences that happen to be laid out in lines, and a reader who pauses at the end of every line turns an argument into a shopping list. Print the poem out, mark the real full stops in pencil, and read to those marks.
The second is to decide what each poem is actually saying and read that. Sonnet 116 is not a soft poem; it is a stubborn one, and it works when it is read as a claim being defended. "A Birthday" is a poem of uncomplicated happiness and should get faster and brighter, not more reverent. Reciting everything in the same hushed wedding voice flattens five very different poems into one.
Words that trip readers, and what to do about them
Old poems are full of small pronunciation traps, and the moment a reader hesitates, the room stops listening to the poem and starts worrying about the reader. Go through the text with the reader beforehand, find every word either of you is unsure about, and write it phonetically on their card, right where it appears.
The usual suspects are here: "vair" and "fleurs-de-lys" in Rossetti, "contemned" in the Song of Solomon, and the entire question of the Scots in Burns. None of them is difficult once it has been said out loud once, and all of them are a disaster the first time they are met in front of a hundred people.
What we do not reprint, and why
These come up constantly and every one of them is still in copyright. You may read any of them aloud at your own ceremony; what nobody should do is reprint them in a program or on a website without permission, and that includes us.
- Mary Oliver, Rilke, and Rumi
Three names that come up constantly when couples go looking for something lyrical and a little mystical.
Why it is not here: Oliver’s work is recent and in copyright. Rilke wrote in German, and every English version people actually quote is a modern translation with its own copyright. The Rumi in circulation is almost always a twentieth-century rendering rather than a translation, and is likewise protected.
Where to get it: Buy the collection and credit the translator by name in your program. With Rilke and Rumi especially, the translator wrote most of the English you love.
- Song lyrics
The verse from the song that was playing the night you met, read rather than sung.
Why it is not here: Lyrics are among the most tightly protected texts there are, and a printed program is a publication. Reading a verse aloud at your own ceremony is a different matter from reprinting it.
Where to get it: Read it aloud and credit the writer out loud; leave it out of the printed program unless you have cleared it.
Keep the readings with the rest of the ceremony
RiteBinder is the booking desk and the writing desk in one: the interview, the script, the readings, and a podium that needs no signal on the day. Free to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Which classic poem is the safest choice?
- Sonnet 116 is the most-used and the most robust: the room recognizes it, it is exactly the right length, and it says one clear thing. If your reader is confident it is very hard to beat. If your reader is nervous, "A Birthday" is easier to say and just as loved.
- Are these poems free to print in our program?
- Yes, all of them. Each was first published well before 1930 and is in the public domain in the United States. The year and the edition we checked are printed under each poem, so you can confirm it before it goes to the printer.
- Can a child read one of these?
- The Owl and the Pussy-Cat is written for exactly that, and a child reading it is one of the most charming things a ceremony can include. Rehearse it once, print it large, and agree a signal that means "start that bit again", so a stumble stays funny rather than turning into a crisis.
- How long should a poem take to read at a wedding?
- Between twenty seconds and a minute. Every poem here is inside that range, with its spoken length listed. Anything much past a minute needs a genuinely skilled reader, because the room’s attention has a shape and a long reading sits right where that shape dips.