Wedding Readings: Bible Verses and Non-Religious Ideas

Wedding readings are the moment you hand the ceremony to someone else: a parent, a grandparent, a friend who knows you both. Most ceremonies have one to three readings of one to three minutes each. In church the minister will suggest or approve them; at a civil, garden or beach ceremony you can choose almost anything that suits you.

Below are Bible passages by reference, with a short line from the King James Version, Afrikaans references for readers who’d rather read in Afrikaans, classic poems and prose that are out of copyright, and how to choose and prepare your readers, including how to be heard on a windy beach.

How many wedding readings, and how long?

One to three readings is the usual range. One is plenty for a short beach ceremony; three works in church, where readings are part of the service’s rhythm. Each should take one to three minutes to read aloud slowly, which for most passages means a few verses or a single poem, not a chapter.

Readings usually come after the welcome and before the address or sermon. With two readings, some couples put one before the vows and one after the rings. Your wedding ceremony order of service is where you decide.

In church, ask the minister early. Many churches expect at least one reading from Scripture and have views on which translation is used. At a civil ceremony, your marriage officer will usually welcome readings, but ask how many fit their usual timing.

Bible readings for weddings

These are well-known choices, given by reference so your reader can use the translation your church prefers. The lines quoted are from the King James Version, where “charity” is the old word for love.

A few practical notes. 1 Corinthians 13 is the passage many guests will recognise, so if you’d like something less expected, consider Colossians 3 or Ecclesiastes 4 instead. Ruth 1:16–17 was originally spoken by a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, which some couples find touching and others find odd; read the context before you choose. And Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 ends with the “threefold cord”, which pairs well with a cord of three strands, one of our unity ceremony ideas.

Afrikaans Bible readings

If your reader is more at home in Afrikaans, they can read the same passages from an Afrikaans Bible. The Bible Society of South Africa’s Afrikaans translations include those of 1933 (revised in 1953), 1983 and 2020, and other publishers have produced versions such as the Nuwe Lewende Vertaling (2006) and Die Boodskap (2002). Ask your dominee which one the congregation uses, so the reader and the printed programme match.

These are the book names in the 1983 translation. Older Bibles spell some of them differently, so use the spelling of the Bible your reader will actually hold. You can look up passages in the 1983 Afrikaans translation online. For more ways to bring both languages into the ceremony, see our Afrikaans wedding vows.

Classic poems and prose that are out of copyright

These are long out of copyright, so you can print them in your order of service as well as read them.

• William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 (published 1609). It opens “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments”, an echo of the Prayer Book wedding service, which asks whether anyone knows a reason why the couple may not be married. Fourteen lines, about a minute to read.
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). It begins “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” and lists them, beautifully, in fourteen lines. She wrote the sequence for the poet Robert Browning, whom she married.
• Kahlil Gibran, “On Marriage” from The Prophet (1923). The best-known lines are “But let there be spaces in your togetherness, / And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” Read on a windy beach, it may well get a knowing smile. You’ll find the full text on Project Gutenberg.
• Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (published as a book in 1922). The Skin Horse’s answer, which begins “Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you”, is a gentle choice for a non-religious ceremony, and a good one for a reader who isn’t confident with poetry.

Modern poems and song lyrics are a different matter. Many are still in copyright, so don’t print them in full in your programme. List the title and author instead, and let the reader read from the book.

Choosing and preparing your readers

The best reader isn’t always the closest person; it’s the one who’ll practise. Readings are a good way to honour someone who isn’t in the bridal party: a grandparent, a godparent, a sibling or a friend from each side.

1. Ask early. At least a month before the wedding, so nobody feels ambushed.
2. Give them a printed copy. Large type, in a plain folder they can hold with one hand, not a phone screen that dims or locks at the wrong moment.
3. Ask them to practise aloud. Five times at least, slowly, pausing at the commas. Most nervous readers rush.
4. Tell them the logistics. Where they’ll sit (an aisle seat near the front), when they’ll be called, where they’ll stand and whether there’s a microphone.
5. Include them in the rehearsal. One walk to the reading spot and one practice with the microphone removes most of the nerves.

If you’re writing a personal reading or a letter for a parent to read, the same rules apply as for vows: short, specific and spoken aloud before the day. Our guide on how to write wedding vows covers the basics.

Being heard at an outdoor ceremony

Readings are where outdoor ceremonies most often fall flat. The reader is nervous, the wind is up, the sea is loud, and the back row hears every third word.

• Use a microphone and a speaker. A mic on a stand leaves the reader’s hands free for the folder.
• Stand facing the guests, not the couple, and hold the folder low enough that it doesn’t hide the reader’s face in the photographs.
• Clip the pages. Loose sheets flap and turn themselves in wind; a folder with a clip, or a single laminated card, doesn’t.
• Keep outdoor readings short. One minute of something heard beats three minutes of something lost.

On the Eastern Cape coast the wind usually picks up in the afternoon in summer. For a beach ceremony we watch the wind and tide forecasts through the week before, and the sound setup goes into the running order with everything else.

Next steps

Choose your readings, run them past your minister or marriage officer, and send each reader their text with a note of when and where they’ll read. Add the titles and readers’ names to your order of service, and if you’d like the whole ceremony planned and run for you on the coast between Gqeberha and Plettenberg Bay, see how we plan weddings.