Wedding Readings To Make Your Guests Laugh, Cry & Cheer!

Planning your wedding ceremony and want it to feel like a true reflection of your relationship? Whether you’re wild romantics, total goofs or both ~ your ceremony deserves a moment that tugs heartstrings and feels like magic.

That’s where wedding readings come in ~ they’re the secret sauce that help you capture the vibe of your love story. From fierce feminism to pop culture moments, inclusive odes to love or a few cheeky giggles ~ this curated collection of a few of my favourite wedding readings is here to inspire fun-loving couples like YOU to create a ceremony that’s authentic, meaningful and unforgettable.

And guess what? You don’t need to settle for outdated, same-same or overly cheesy options. Your wedding reading can be anything that feels right for you ~ and I’m here to help you find it.

💍 Why Wedding Readings Matter

Because your love story deserves to be told in a way that’s unapologetically you 💫

Choosing a wedding reading is a chance to infuse your ceremony with emotion, meaning and a sprinkle of your personalities. Whether it’s a line from your favourite Netflix show, a tear-jerking poem or a rebellious rant in rhyme ~ it sets the tone for your day and lets your guests feel the vibe. From song lyrics, to children’s stories, movie lines to Shakespearean sonnets, cultural traditions or spiritual blessings ~ whatever is true to you and your family.

Wedding Readings also give other important guests the opportunity to play a significant role in your big day. My Darling and I asked our Mothers to recite poems which we cherished.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few fairy godmother tips to keep in mind:

🪄 How to Choose the Right Reading

• Make it personal ~ Choose something that reflects your journey or inside jokes.

• Set the tone ~ Are you aiming for laughter, tears, or quiet reflection?

• Keep it short + sweet ~ 1–2 mins max is the sweet spot.

• Be inclusive ~ Let’s ditch the ‘ye olde’ wording and celebrate all love stories.

• Let your people shine ~ Choose readers who’ll deliver it with love and confidence.

📝 The Best Non-Traditional Wedding Readings for Fun-Loving Couples to Make Your Heart Melt

Curated especially for modern, creative, fun-loving couples who want their ceremony to feel 100% like them

💡 Here’s just a few of my handpicked wedding readings ~ including pop culture gems, feminist poetry, hilarious twists and deeply romantic picks that won’t make you cringe.

🐾 1. Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog – Taylor Mali

First of all, it’s a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.

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.

Love may break a few things in passion for life,
but you can never stay mad at love for long.

Love needs cleaning up after.

Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.

And in return, love loves you.

And never stops.

💫 2. Relativity – Albert Einstein

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.

How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as love?

Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour.

Sit with that special person for an hour and it seems like a minute.

That’s relativity.

💖 3. Love – 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
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,
After all.

💪 4. I’d Rather Rise in Love With You – Jana Lynne Umipig

I don’t want sweet nothings whispered in my ears.
I’d rather be confronted by the savoury somethings.

I don’t want to fall for you —
Falling is falseness, it’s fleeting.
I’d rather rise in love with you.
In ascension. Without fear and apprehension.

I don’t want to sacrifice any part of me to make it work.

I want to invest in all of me and all of you,

And give gratitude that we empower one another in self-worth.

I don’t want to be possessed or bound by love.

I’d rather be liberated in loving.
I’d rather be love that is revolutionary.
Love that is presence, respect, truth.

In love with you is all of this to me.

And there is no place I would rather be.

🌌 5. All I Know About Love – 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.

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 nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours.

And in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
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.

⚡ 6. I Wanna Be Yours – John Cooper Clarke

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust

I wanna be your Ford Cortina

I will never rust

If you like your coffee hot

Let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away

Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere

I don’t care

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out

I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without

I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion

Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotion.

🫧7. You Are the Bubbles – Rachel Bright

Together, you are the bubbles in one another’s champagne.

The morning sun through a window.
The breaking of a smile.

You are the one doughnut in the bag with more jam than all the others.

The photo where everyone looks great.

The off-key chorus of your favourite song.

You’re an accidental adventure.

A chocolate chip. A nose of cheese. A hug. A kiss. A hold-my-hand.

You’re a decision that looking back, will seem like the most excellent one ever made.

You are the unburstable bubbles of life’s best things.

The only things we really ever need.

🎤 8. He’s Not Perfect – Bob Marley

He’s not perfect.

You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect.

But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice,
and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can.

He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment,
but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break.

Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give.

Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad,
and miss him when he’s not there.

Love hard when there is love to be had.

Because perfect guys don’t exist,
but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.

💗 9. Song Lyrics from Mirrors – Justin Timberlake

Aren’t you somethin’ to admire?<br class=”yoast-text-mark” ‘Cause your shine is somethin’ like a mirror
And I can’t help but notice
You reflect in this heart of mine
If you ever feel alone and
The glare makes me hard to find
Just know that I’m always parallel on the other side

‘Cause with your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul
I can tell you there’s no place we couldn’t go
Just put your hand on the glass
I’m here tryin’ to pull you through
You just gotta be strong

‘Cause I don’t wanna lose you now
I’m lookin’ right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you hold
Show me how to fight for now
And I’ll tell you, baby, it was easy
Comin’ back here to you once I figured it out
You were right here all along

It’s like you’re my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn’t get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it’s clear as this promise
That we’re making two reflections into one
‘Cause it’s like you’re my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me

Aren’t you somethin’, an original
‘Cause it doesn’t seem merely a sample
And I can’t help but stare, ’cause
I see truth somewhere in your eyes
I can’t ever change without you
You reflect me, I love that about you
And if I could, I would look at us all the time

Yesterday is history
Tomorrow’s a mystery
I can see you lookin’ back at me
Keep your eyes on me
Baby, keep your eyes on me

‘Cause I don’t wanna lose you now
I’m lookin’ right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you hold
Show me how to fight for now (please show me, baby)
I’ll tell you, baby, it was easy
Comin’ back here to you once I figured it out
You were right here all along

It’s like you’re my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn’t get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it’s clear as this promise
That we’re making two reflections into one
‘Cause it’s like you’re my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me

You are, you are the love of my life

Now you’re the inspiration of this precious song
And I just wanna see your face light up since you put me on
So now I say goodbye to the old me, it’s already gone
And I can’t wait wait wait wait wait to get you home
Just to let you know, you are

You are, you are the love of my life

Girl you’re my reflection, all I see is you
My reflection, in everything I do
You’re my reflection and all I see is you
My reflection, in everything I do

You are, you are the love of my life

🥰 10. From The Wedding Singer movie

“I want to make you smile whenever you’re sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad
All I want to do is grow old with you
I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you
I’ll miss you
Kiss you
Give you my coat when you are cold
Need you
Feed you
Even let you hold the remote control
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink
Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink
I could be the man who grows old with you
I want to grow old with you.”

🎼 11. Excerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres

Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.

And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it 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 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.

🐰 12. Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit – 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.”

👸 13. The Princess Bride – William Goldman

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches… I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I…

I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said, ‘Farm Boy, do this’, you thought I was answering, ‘As you wish’, but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”

🎨 14. The Art of Marriage – Wilferd Petersen

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 having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is standing together facing the world.

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.

Let Me Help You Plan a Ceremony That’s So You

Hi! I’m Kimberly ~ your fun-loving fairy godmother Celebrant + MC with over 30 years of event magic and a playful passion for helping couples breeze through wedding planning with more fun, less expense and zero stress.

From your love story to your vows, I’ll help you create a ceremony that feels like a page out of your favourite book ~ but way more sparkly and unforgettable.  Including wedding readings for fun-loving couples to make your heart melt. ✨

Download my freebie: Pick Your Perfect Celebrant to get started on planning your dream ceremony!

Want a Ceremony That’s Unforgettable for All the Right Reasons?

Let’s create wedding magic together that captures your vibe, your love story and your dream day!

💌 Get in touch today to start planning your wedding ceremony that will spark fireworks in your soul ~ and have your guests raving long after the last dance.

Arohanui / much love

your Marriage Officiant + Small Wedding Planner