Suggested Readings for Your Ceremony
- Meb McMahon
- Oct 13
- 18 min read
Updated: Oct 14
One of the most common questions I receive from couples is about ceremony reading recommendations. Below you'll find readings that resonate with many couples — ready whenever you need inspiration!
If none of these feel quite right for your celebration, just let me know! I'd be happy to help you find something that perfectly matches your unique style and wedding vision.
_________________________________
Let’s Grow Old Together
by Denise Braxton Brown and Peggy Wrightsman
Let’s grow old together, beginning with today. Let’s work slowly with each other and build a relationship that we both enjoy. Let’s share love and understanding that neither of us is perfect; we are both subject to human frailties. Let’s hold each other close and whisper through the night, pledging our love, honoring our commitment. Let’s encourage each other to pursue our dreams, even when we’re weary from trying. Let’s expect the best that we both offer and still love when we fall short of our expectations. Let’s be friends and respect each other’s individual personalities. Let’s be candid with each other and point out strengths and weaknesses. Let’s be friends as well as lovers. Let’s never take for granted these moments that we’ve shared, but always be reminded of how intensely we have learned to live and love each other. May our journey together grow sweeter by the day. Let’s grow old together. As we look back on our lives someday, may we do so with a smile.
_________________________________
Marriage Joins Two People In the Circle of Its Love
by Edmund O'Neill
Marriage is a commitment to life,
the best that two people can find and bring out in each other.
It offers opportunities for sharing and growth
that no other relationship can equal.
It is a physical and an emotional joining
that is promised for a lifetime.
Within the circle of its love,
marriage encompasses all of life's most important relationships.
A wife and a husband are each other's best friend,
confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic.
And there may come times
when one partner is heartbroken or ailing,
and the love of the other may resemble
the tender caring of a parent or child.
Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life.
Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher,
commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly,
and passes away more quickly.
Marriage understands and forgives
the mistakes life is unable to avoid.
It encourages and nurtures new life,
new experiences, new ways of expressing
a love that is deeper than life.
When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage,
they create a spirit unique unto themselves which binds them closer
than any spoken or written words.
Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people
who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.
_________________________________
What Is Love? by Author Unknown
Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives. For love is the creator of our favorite memories and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. And this radiance that never fades, this mysterious and magical joy, is the greatest treasure of all – one known only by those who love.
_________________________________
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
by Louis de Bernieres
Love is temporary madness
It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides
And when it subsides you have a to make a decision
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
That is inconceivable that you should ever part
Because this is what love is
Love is not breathlessness
IT is not excitement
it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion
That is just being “in love,” which any fool can do
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away
And this is both an art and a fortunate accident
Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground
And when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches
They find that they are one tree and not two.
_________________________________
Blessing for a Marriage
by James Dillet Freeman
May your marriage bring you all the excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.
May you always need one another – not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make th mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise, often say, “I Love you!” and take no notice of small faults.
If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.
May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.
_________________________________
Selected verses from I Corinthians: 13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,
But do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers,
And understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
And I have all faith,
So as to remove mountains,
But do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions
And if I hand over my body so that I may boast,
But do not have LOVE, I gain nothing.
Love is patient. Love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice in wrongdoing; but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
_________________________________
Selected verses from I John: 4
Beloved, let us love one another
Because love is from God.
Everyone who loves is born of God
And knows God.
Whoever does not love,
Does not know God, for God is LOVE.
No one has ever seen God;
But if we love one another,
God lives in us and his love
Is made perfect through us.
_________________________________
From The Sutta Nipata: Discourse on Good Will a Buddhist scripture
May all beings be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The mean and the powerful,
The short and the long,
The subtle and the gross:
May all beings everywhere,
Seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.
Let no one deceive another,
Let no one anywhere despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resentment
Wish suffering on anyone at all.
Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.
Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then, as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
_________________________________
From Colossians 3:12-17
12. As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord[f] has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16. Let the word of Christ[g] dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.[h] 17. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
_________________________________
An Interpretation from Genesis
In the beginning God created the world,
One world, made of bits and pieces of heaven.
Each piece was uniquely shaped
Some tall, some short, some round, some slender,
Shades of yellow and brown, some red, some ivory
Some male and female, some gay, some straight…
They were lovingly made in the Creator’s image
And they were beautiful.
Each piece was made to fit with every other piece,
A tiny glimpse of heaven.
And, In each tiny piece,
God placed a part of the secret of how the whole fit together,
If one piece were forgotten,
The world would not be complete.
And God blessed them
And told them to love one another.
Then God looked upon creation
And behold, it was very good.
_________________________________
LOVE
By Roy Croft
I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
_________________________________
A Reading from Bob Marley
She’s not perfect, you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together, but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break – her heart. So, don’t hurt her. Don’t change her. Don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy. Let her know when she makes you mad and miss her when she’s not there.
_________________________________
A reading from Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brönte
"I have for the first time found what I can truly love — I have found you. You are my sympathy — my better self — my good angel — I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my center and spring of life, wraps my existence about you — and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you." _________________________________
Ceremony Reading Except from The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nanna came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
_________________________________
"How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog”
by Taylor Mali
On cold winter nights, love is warm. It lies between you and lives and breathes and makes funny noises. Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs. It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.
Love doesn’t like being left alone for long. But come home and love is always happy to see you. It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life, but you can never be mad at love for long.
Is love good all the time? No! No! Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.
Love makes messes. Love leaves you little surprises here and there. Love needs lots of cleaning up after. Sometimes you just want to get love fixed. Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper and swat love on the nose, not so much to cause pain, just to let love know, “Don’t you ever do that again!”
Sometimes love just wants to go out for a nice long walk. Because love loves exercise. It will run you around the block and leave you panting, breathless. Pull you in different directions at once, or wind itself around and around you until you’re all wound up and you cannot move.
But love makes you meet people wherever you go. People who have nothing in common but love stop and talk to each other on the street.
Throw things away and love will bring them back, again, and again, and again. But most of all, love needs love, lots of it. And in return, love loves you and never stops.
_________________________________
The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach
“A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
_________________________________
All I Know About Love
by Neil Gaiman
This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I've learned about marriage: nothing.
Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.
It's not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it's what they mean.
Somebody's got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn't want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.
It's not two broken halves becoming one.
It's the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.
So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.
Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else's love, nobody else's marriage, is like yours,
and it's a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.
And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.
And that's all I know about love.
_________________________________
Union
by Robert Fulghum
You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way.
All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with
“I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late-night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart.
All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.
The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”
Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.
For after today you shall say to the world –
This is my husband. This is my wife.
_________________________________
For Marriage
by John O’Donohue
As spring unfolds the dream of the earth,
May you bring each other's hearts to birth.
As the ocean finds calm in view of land,
May you love the gaze of each other's mind.
As the wind arises free and wild,
May nothing negative control your lives.
As kindly as moonlight might search the dark,
So gentle may you be when light grows scarce.
As surprised as the silence that music opens,
May your words for each other be touched with reverence.
As warmly as the air draws in the light,
May you welcome each other's every gift.
As elegant as dream absorbing the night,
May sleep find you clear of anger and hurt.
As twilight harvests all the day's color,
May love bring you home to each other.
_________________________________
Blessing of Hands
by Reverend Daniel L. Harris
These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and forever.
These are the hands that will work alongside yours, as together you build your future.
These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch, will comfort you like no other.
These are the hands that will hold you when fear or grief fills your mind.
These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes; tears of sorrow, and tears of joy.
These are the hands that will tenderly hold your children.
These are the hands that will help you to hold your family as one.
These are the hands that will give you strength when you need it.
And lastly, these are the hands that even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch.
_________________________________
"I Carry Your Heart With Me"
by E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me
i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
I want no world(for beautiful you are my world,
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart).
_________________________________
The Art Of Marriage
by Wilferd A. Peterson
Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage the little things are the big things...
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude
of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation
and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience,
understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal,
dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
It is discovering what marriage can be, at its best.
_________________________________
"I Will Be There"
by Steven Curtis Chapman
Tomorrow morning if you wake up
And the sun does not appear
I… I will be here
If in the dark we lose sight of love
Hold my hand and have no fear
‘Cause I… I will be here
I will be here
When you feel like being quiet
When you need to speak your mind
I will listen
And I will be here
When the laughter turns to crying
Through the winning, losing and trying
We’ll be together
‘Cause I will be here
Tomorrow morning if you wake up
And the future is unclear
I… I will be here
As sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
So I… I will be here
I will be here
And you can cry on my shoulder
When the mirror tells us we’re older
I will hold you
And I will be here
To watch you grow in beauty
And tell you all the things you are to me
I will be here, hmmm
I will be true to the promise I have made
To you and to the One who gave you to me
And just as sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
So I… I will be here
We’ll be together
I will be here
_________________________________
Thoughts In a Garden
by Robert Gerhardt
This is a special place, a place where people have brought beautiful living plants, here to establish them, to nurture and care for them, that they may forever surround us with the beauty we now see. And into this place where we stand, you have brought something beautiful – the relationship that is becoming your marriage. Here you are declaring it and pledging it, promising to establish and nurture it.
We are aware of the special beauty between the two of you, just as we are aware of the special beauty of this place. We are with you now in this appropriate place to celebrate your relationship as it is and as it is yet to be, and in doing so, we ask only that you remember how your life together will have the same seasons and needs as this garden.
There will be growth like Spring and loss like Fall; there will be giving as the blossoming flower, and rest as the seed beneath the snow. All the seasons will be yours, but remember, too, that gardens are not just happenings. The more wonderful the garden, the more skilled the gardener.
So you will have to care deeply for the life that is yours together, and nurture it. You will have to appreciate your differences and cultivate them. You will have to take care of yourself, if for no other reason than out of love for the other. And you will need the support of family and friends to reach full growth.
As you caringly chose this place to declare your marriage, so remember it's lessons for your life together through the seasons that are yours to share. And may those seasons bring you and yours joy and happiness.
_________________________________
Marriage Is Not Beautiful
by Ichko Jargalsaikhan
“Marriage is ugly, I’m sure those who are married here will agree.
You see the absolute worst in someone.
You see them when they’re mad, sad, being stubborn and when they are so unlovable they make you scream.
But that is all so worth it.
Because you also get to see them when they are laughing so hard that tears run down their face, when they can’t help but make those weird snorting noises they make only in front of you.
You get to see the side of them that no one else does, and it’s not always pretty.
It’s the strange faces they pull only at you; it’s the tears when it feels like it’s all crashing down.
It’s the bad breath and the farting.
It’s the sniffing of the top lip, the silly walks and the random dances.
It’s the anger that’s not directed at you but feels SO like it is.
It’s the joy in the happy memory making.
Marriage isn’t a beautiful thing, but it is amazing.
It’s knowing that someone loves you so much and won’t leave you no matter how nasty you are to them.
It’s having someone have your back, no matter what.
It’s fights over stupid things, like almost everything!!!
But it’s also those nights when you fall asleep in each other’s arms, feeling like you’d never want to be anywhere else.
It’s the dirtiest, hardest, most rewarding job there is.
Because at the end of the day, you get to climb into bed not only with your best friend, but with the weirdest, most annoying, loyal, moodiest, loving, silliest but perfect person you know.
Marriage is not beautiful, but it’s one mad and exciting rollercoaster of a ride,
that we want to stay on forever.
_________________________________
Comments