Short Wedding Readings: 10 Original Pieces And 6 Classics • Vowness

A short reading is easier to deliver, easier to follow and leaves room for the parts of the ceremony that matter most. Most of the readings below take under a minute at a relaxed speaking pace of about 130 words a minute.

The first ten were written for this page, so you can use them freely and change a word or two to suit you. The rest are classics in the public domain, which means you can read them, print them in your program and adapt them without asking anyone.

Quick guide: all 16 readings by speaking time. Tap a column heading to sort.

#	Reading	Time
1	Two People, One Home	15 sec
2	The Promise Of Showing Up	20 sec
3	A Small And Steady Flame	15 sec
4	The Same Direction	15 sec
5	Choosing You Again	20 sec
6	With Open Hands	20 sec
7	The Kitchen Table	20 sec
8	A Blessing For The Road	15 sec
9	To Be Known	15 sec
10	The Long Way Home	15 sec
11	Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare	25 sec
12	Song of Solomon 8:6-7, King James Version	25 sec
13	A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns	20 sec
14	How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning	15 sec
15	That Love is all there is by Emily Dickinson	10 sec
16	Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning, opening lines	10 sec

Ten Short Readings Written For This Page

1. Two People, One Home (about 15 seconds)

A home is not a place. It is the person you want to tell about your day.

Today two people decide that, from now on, home is each other.

2. The Promise Of Showing Up (about 25 seconds)

Love is easy to feel and harder to keep. The keeping is in the showing up: the early mornings, the tired evenings, the hand held in a waiting room.

Today you promise to keep showing up for each other. That is the whole secret.

3. A Small And Steady Flame (about 25 seconds)

Love is not always a bonfire. Most days it is a small, steady flame that you both agree to tend.

Keep it dry, keep it fed, and it will warm you for as long as you live.

4. The Same Direction (about 20 seconds)

Marriage is not two people looking at each other forever. It is two people looking in the same direction, side by side, with their hands full of each other.

5. Choosing You Again (about 25 seconds)

Today I choose you. Tomorrow I will choose you again, on a good day or a bad day, in the rain or in the sun.

A marriage is that one small choice, made over and over for as long as we both are here.

6. With Open Hands (about 30 seconds)

Hold each other with open hands. Let each of you grow, and be glad when the other one does.

The strongest marriages are not the tightest. They are the ones where two people are free, and still choose to stay.

7. The Kitchen Table (about 30 seconds)

Most of a marriage happens at a kitchen table. Plans are made there, fights are settled there, and good news is shared there first.

May yours always have two chairs pulled close, and space for everyone who comes to sit with you.

8. A Blessing For The Road (about 30 seconds)

May you always have a friend beside you, a laugh to share and a place to rest.

May the hard days be shorter than the good ones, and may you never take the good ones for granted.

9. To Be Known (about 25 seconds)

To be loved is a gift. To be known, and loved anyway, is something rarer.

Today you promise to know each other better with every year, and to love each other anyway.

10. The Long Way Home (about 30 seconds)

Every road you took led you here, even the wrong turns and the long way round.

Whatever comes next, you will take it together. That is what today is for.

Short Classic Readings In The Public Domain

These six are old enough that no permission is needed. We give the lines most couples read, not the whole poem, to keep the timing short.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare (about 25 seconds)

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.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7, King James Version (about 30 seconds)

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns (about 20 seconds)

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That's newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melodie

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (about 20 seconds)

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.

That Love is all there is by Emily Dickinson (about 15 seconds)

That Love is all there is,

Is all we know of Love;

It is enough, the freight should be

Proportioned to the groove.

Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning, opening lines (about 15 seconds)

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

How To Use A Short Reading Well

Pair a short reading with a long one. One short, warm reading after a longer piece gives the ceremony a rhythm.
Use it as the bridge to the vows. A twenty-second reading is a good lead-in to the moment you speak to each other.
Let someone else read it. A short reading is a gentle way to give a nervous friend or an older relative a role.
Keep a printed copy at the front. Hand your reader a large-type copy, so nobody scrolls a phone with a microphone in the other hand.
Add a line of your own. Change a word to a name or a place and the whole piece becomes yours.

If you want something longer after the short reading, our non-religious readings and Bible readings have time estimates for every piece. For a laugh, our funny wedding readings are timed too.

Short Wedding Reading Questions

How long is a short wedding reading?

Under a minute, which is about 130 words or fewer. A reading of 50 to 80 words takes 25 to 40 seconds at a relaxed pace.

How many readings should a ceremony have?

One to three. Two readings, one of them short, is a common choice. A short ceremony of around twenty minutes usually has room for just one or two.

Can we shorten a poem?

Yes. Reading the first stanza or two of a public domain poem is common. For a poem still under copyright, check the rules before you print more than a few lines in your program.

Who should read a short reading?

A friend, sibling, parent or grandparent. Pick someone who knows you both and will not rush. Ask them a few weeks ahead and send them the exact wording.

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