Looking for readings for your wedding ceremony?
Look no further; here are the most popular religious readings for your wedding ceremony. Your choices can be religious or modern, and include poetry if desired, depending upon the type of service you have decided.
They can be delivered at various times throughout the service, and placement of specific readings may be requested by clergy. Check with your clergy as to the placement and appropriateness.
Religious
Wedding Ceremony Reading - COLOSSIANS 3:12-14
Put on them, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against, another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Wedding CeremonyReading - 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8A
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - ECCLESIATES 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their toll.
For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.
Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone?
And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - EPHESIANS
Submit yourselves one to another as the fear of God. Wives, show reverence for your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husband in everything.
Husbands, love your wife, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkles or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own body; he that loves his wife loves himself.
For no man ever yet hadeth his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one and I am saying this as it refers to Christ and the Church; however, let husband love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respect her husband.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - GENISIS 1:26-31
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - GENISIS 2:28-24
The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.
So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said:
“This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called woman, for out of her man this one has been taken.
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - JEREMIAH 31:31-34
Behold, the days come saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I forgive their iniquity, and I will remember this sin no more.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - MARK 10:6-9
From the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - PSALM 128:1-4
Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful wine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - THE PRAYER - By St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that we may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
TRADITIONAL IRISH BLESSING - This can be used for your wedding cerermony or as a reading at the reception, perhaps as a reading prior to dinner.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness,
From this day forward.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home,
And may the hand of friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies about you.
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.
WEDDING PRAYER - By Louis Stevenson
Lord, behold our family here assembled.
We thank you forthis place in which we dwell,
For the love that unites us, for the peace accorded us this day,
For the hope with which we expect the morrow,
For the health, the work, the food,
And the bright skies that make our lives delightful;
For our friends in all parts of the earth
Amen.
Wedding Ceremony Reading - THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, SONG OF SONGS 2:8-10, 14, 16a; 8:6-7a
For love is as strong as death.
I hear my beloved. See how he comes leaping on the mountains,
Bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle,
like a young stag.
See where he stands behind our wall.
He looks in at the window,
He peers through the lattice.
My beloved lifts up his voice, he says to me,
“Come then, my love,
My lovely, come.
My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock,
In the covers of the cliff,
Show me your face,
Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet
And your face is beautiful.
My beloved is mine and I am his.
He said to me:
Set me like a seal on your heart,
For love is strong as death,
Jealousy relentless as Sheol.
The flash of it is a flash of fir,
A flame of the Lord himself.
Love no flood can quench,
No torrents down.
There are numerous wedding ceremony readings that can be used. These are just a few of the most popular readings. Your clergy, friends, and family may also have some ideas that perhaps they have used at their own wedding ceremony.
When reviewing the readings, be sure to think about who you will want to read at your wedding. Once you decide on a particular reading for your ceremony, you should share the reading ahead of time with that person or persons to make sure they have time to practice the particular wedding prayer for the ceremony. You will also want to let them know when they will be reading at the wedding. The rehearsal will finalize the timing so they will be comfortable at the wedding ceremony. Remember there may be a large crowd, and they will need to feel comfortable prior to the actual ceremony.