16 Wedding Readings About Love

Talking ‘bout love, love, love…don’t mind us singing to ourselves. We’re just feeling all giddy and fuzzy inside after putting together these 16 wedding readings about love. We are literally talking about love today! It makes sense for your wedding readings to be all about the feeling of love. That’s what a wedding is, after all, a celebration of everlasting love! In this roundup, we’ve got something for every couple. This collection of romantic wedding readings has something for everyone. Whether you prefer sweet and sappy, funny and relatable, deep and reflective, or classic literature, you'll find it all here. At the end of this article, we’ve attached images for you to add to your Pinterest boards or download and take straight to your ceremony!

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.

Love Is Friendship Caught Fire

by Laura Hendricks 

Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past. It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.

In The Meantime

by Tom Hirons

Meanwhile, flowers still bloom.
The moon rises, and the sun.
Babies smile and somewhere,
Against all the odds,
Two people are falling in love.

Strangers share cigarettes and jokes.
Light plays on the surface of water.
Grace occurs on unlikely streets
And we hold each other fast|
Against entropy, the fires and the flood.

Life leans towards living
And, while death claims all things at the end,
There were such precious times between,
In which everything was radiant
And we loved, again, this world.

 

These I Can Promise 

by Mark Twain

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine;
I cannot promise riches, wealth, or gold;
I cannot promise you an easy pathway
That leads away from change or growing old.
But I can promise all my heart's devotion;
A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow;
A love that's ever true and ever growing;
A hand to hold in yours through each tomorrow.

In Madness Lies Sanity

by Alan Watts

Well now really when we go back into falling in love. And say, it's crazy. Falling. You see? We don't say "rising into love." There is in it the idea of the fall. And it goes back, as a matter of fact, to extremely fundamental things. That there is always a curious tie at some point between the fall and the creation. Taking this ghastly risk is the condition of there being life. You see, for all life is an act of faith an act of gamble. The moment you take a step, you do so on an act of faith because you don't really know that the floor's not going to give under your feet... so, actually, therefore, the course of wisdom, what is really sensible, is to let go, is to commit oneself, to give oneself up and that's quite mad. So we come to the strange conclusion that in madness lies sanity.

What Is The Greatest Gift

by Mary Oliver

What is the greatest gift? 
Could it be the world itself — the oceans, the meadowlark, 
the patience of the trees in the wind? 
Could it be love, with its sweet clamour of passion?

Something else — something else entirely 
holds me in thrall. 
That you have a life that I wonder about 
more than I wonder about my own. 
That you have a life — courteous, intelligent — 
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own. 
That you have a soul — your own, no one else's — 
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own. 
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours 
more than my own.

Love Sonnet 17

by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way
        to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

How Do I Love Thee

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
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.

Love's Philosophy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Untitled

by Christina Rossetti 

What is the beginning? Love.
What the course. Love still.
What the goal. The goal is Love.
On a happy hill
Is there nothing then but Love?
Search we sky or earth
There is nothing out of Love
Hath perpetual worth;
All things flag but only Love,
All things fail and flee;
There is nothing left but Love
Worthy you and me.

Love Me When I’m Old

by Bee Rawlinson  

Love me when I’m old and shocking
Peel off my elastic stockings
Swing me from the chandeliers
Let’s be randy bad old dears.

Push around my chromed Bath Chair
Let me tease your white chest hair
Scaring children, swapping dentures
Let us have some great adventures

Take me to the Dogs and Bingo
Teach me how to speak the lingo
Bone my eels and bring me tea
Show me how it’s meant to be

Take me to your special places
Watching all the puzzled faces
You in shorts and socks and sandals
Me with warts and huge love-handles

As the need for love enthralls
Wrestle with my damp proof smalls
Make me laugh without constraint
Buy me chocolate body paint

Hold me safe throughout the night
When my hair has turned to white
Believe me when I say it’s true
I’ve waited all my life for you

Love and Friendship

by Emily Brontë

Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree—
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He still may leave thy garland green.

The Meaning of True Love

by Anon

The meaning of true love isn’t found in a book
Or explained in a word or a phrase.
It can’t be defined in a casual thought
Or explained in the simplest of ways.
Love gives only itself, it does not possess
Yet creates a bond strong and true.
Love does not demand, it stays young and free
Yet grows with you all your life through.
Love isn’t a fashion, a trend or a whim
That’s forgotten or just cast aside.
Love is constant, fulfilling your hopes and your dreams,
It doesn’t destroy or divide.
Love isn’t accusing, it does not condemn
And though some may say it is blind;
Love is trusting, forgiving and honest
Because it lives in the heart – not the mind.
Love is not bought or sold, it’s not borrowed
Or has a price you would willingly pay.
Love is a gift that can only be kept
As long as it’s given away.

Love is Enough

by William Morris

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
   Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder
   And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass'd over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
   These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

What Is A Soulmate

by Emily Matthews

If you have found a smile that is the sweetest one you've known, If you have heard, within a voice, the echoes of your own, If you have felt a touch that stirs the longings of your heart, And still can feel that closeness in the moments you're apart, If you have filled with wonder at the way two lives can blend To weave a perfect pattern that is seamless, end to end, If you believe some things in life are simply meant to be, Then you have found your soul mate, your heart's own destiny.

Extract from On Love

by Kahlil Gibran

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
     But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
     To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
     To know the pain of too much tenderness.
     To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
     And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
     To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
     To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
     To return home at eventide with gratitude;
     And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Enjoyed these wedding readings about love? Keep your eyes peeled for our weekly breakdown of the readings in this roundup! Every Sunday we’ll go into more detail about the meaning and inspiration behind a reading. In the meantime, if you need some more wedding reading inspiration, take a look at our wedding readings from movies and TV, books, and our favourite religious wedding readings from the Bible!