I am a sucker for a good wedding ceremony reading, but, let’s be honest, there are plenty which have gone way past their due date or have been recycled to death.

Over this year I compiled a huge list of quotes, excerpts and poems that I have ADORED. Some of them I heard as actual ceremony readings, some I found on wedding blogs, others were lyrics from songs I listened to, and there were TONS from highlighted sections of books I’ve read throughout the year.

I’ve narrowed down my extensive list of romantic, funny, modern and realistic reading ideas (‘cause that’s my whole vibe, if you didn’t already know), to 7 wonderful, inspiring choices.

Everything I Know About Love, by Dolly Alderton

I know that love can be loud and jubilant…It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting “YOU ARE AMAZING” over the band. It’s introducing them to your colleagues at a work event and basking in pride as they make people laugh and make you look lovable just by dint of being loved by them.

It’s laughing until you wheeze.

It’s waking up in a country neither of you have been in before.

It’s skinny-dipping at dawn. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.

It’s a big, beautiful, ebullient force of nature.

I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing.

It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting.

It’s hanging up their laundry when they leave the house having moronically forgotten to take it out of the washing machine.

It’s saying ‘You’re safer here than in a car’ as they hyperventilate on an EasyJet flight to Dublin.

It’s the texts: ‘Hope your day goes well’, ‘How did today go?’, ‘Thinking of you today’ and ‘Picked up loo roll’.

I know that love happens under the splendour of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport, or in a traffic jam.

Love is a quiet, reassuring, relaxing, pottering, pedantic, harmonious hum of a thing; something you can easily forget is there, even though its palms are outstretched beneath you in case you fall.

Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"When you love someone; you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.

It is impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand.

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return.

We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity — in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even.

Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits — islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides."

Wedding speech from Fleabag, by Phoebe Waller-Bridge

“Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do.

It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there. So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own. I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.”

Mac MacGuff quote from Juno, by Diablo Cody

(yeah, okay, it’s not a new movie but it’s still a gooden’!)

“The best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are.

Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass.

That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.”

Quotes from the Obama’s

These can be easily adapted into a couple of lovely paragraphs that are real, inspiring and lovely.

Michelle

“It’s important to marry somebody who is your equal, and to marry somebody and to be with somebody who wants you to win as much as you want them to win."

“Marriage is a choice you make every day. You don’t do it because it’s easy. You do it because you believe in it. You believe in the other person.”

(Adapted) “Appreciate the everyday moments - Watch a show together. Talk and catch up. It's nothing major, but that's what marriage is about. Not the big, splashy stuff. It's just the little day-to-day sharing and routines and rituals that you have."

Barack

“You will spend more time with this person than anyone else for the rest of your life, and there is nothing more important than always wanting to hear what she has to say about things.”

Carrie’s Poem from Sex and The City

His hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile

He said she was what was missing
She said instantly she knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was ‘I do’.

Wedding thoughts - All I know about love, by Neil Giaman

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.

Let me put it this way, by Simon Armitage

Let me put it this way:

if you came to lay

your sleeping head

against my arm or sleeve,

and if my arm went dead,

or if I had to take my leave

at midnight, I should rather

cleave it from the joint or seam

than make a scene

or bring you round.

There,

how does that sound?

A Fable of Love and Time, Unknown author

Once upon a time, in an island there lived all the feelings and emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to them that the island would sink! So, all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.
Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.
When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.
Richness was passing by Love in a boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?"
Richness answered, "Sorry Love, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat and so there is no place here for you."
Love next asked Vanity who was also sailing by. Vanity was also ready with the same answer.
"I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.
Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, take me along with you."
"Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself", sadness said in a sullen voice.
Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so preoccupied with her happiness that she did not even hear when Love called her.
Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. Overjoyed, Love jumped up into the boat and in the process forgot to ask where they were going. When they arrived at a dry land, the elder went her own way.
Realising how much was owed to the elder, Love asked Knowledge another elder, "Who helped me?"
"It was Time," Knowledge answered.
"Time?" thought Love. Then, as if reading the face of Love, Knowledge smiled and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is."

“I’ll Be There For You” by Louise Cuddon

I’ll be there my darling, through thick and through thin
When your mind’s in a mess and your head’s in a spin
When your plane’s been delayed, and you’ve missed the last train.
When life is just threatening to drive you insane
When your thrilling whodunit has lost its last page
When somebody tells you, you’re looking your age
When your coffee’s too cool, and your wine is too warm
When the forecast said “Fine”, but you’re out in a storm
When your quick break hotel, turns into a slum
And your holiday photos show only your thumb
When you park for five minutes in a resident’s bay
And return to discover you’ve been towed away
When the jeans that you bought in hope or in haste
Just stick on your hips and don’t reach round your waist
When the food you most like brings you out in red rashes
When as soon as you boot up the bloody thing crashes
So my darling, my sweetheart, my dear…
When you break a rule, when you act the fool
When you’ve got the flu, when you’re in a stew
When you’re last in the queue, don’t feel blue ’cause
I’m telling you, I’ll be there.

Are you as obsessed with any of these as I am?! Will you choose one for your ceremony? Or do you have any recommendations for me to check out? I’d love to hear them! Comment below. xx

10 Awesome Wedding Ceremony Readings For Your 2020 Wedding